


baby, won't you swing it with me

by t_fic (topaz), topaz, topaz119 (topaz)



Series: life after aliens [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Female Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Makeover, Male Friendship, Not Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Two Compliant, POV Female Character, Pining, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers's Motorcycle, Swing Dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27661745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/t_fic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz119
Summary: "So," Steve said with that fake confidence that Darcy recognized from a dozen Captain-America-sells-war-bonds newsreels even if they were on opposite sides of the country talking on a crappy cell connection. "What’s too big of a favor to ask when you’re friends-who-only-see-each-other-once-month?"
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers, Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson
Series: life after aliens [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022613
Comments: 196
Kudos: 415





	1. The Invitation

**Author's Note:**

> Steve and Darcy were background characters (especially Darcy) in the first story in this series, so this is more-or-less standalone unless you want to see how they actually met.

"So," Steve said with that fake confidence that Darcy recognized from a dozen Captain-America-sells-war-bonds newsreels even if they were on opposite sides of the country talking on a crappy cell connection. "What’s too big of a favor to ask when you’re friends-who-only-see-each-other-once-month?"

"Um," Darcy said, shrugging at Jane’s arched eyebrow. _Steve_ , she mouthed and ignored that Look Jane got whenever the topic of Darcy being BFFs with Captain America came up. They went out and found clubs that they could dance in, mostly Cap-era, big band style and that was it. Darcy wasn't dumb enough to think that she was anything other than a safe outlet for the guy's (frankly) tragic lack of a social life. "I don’t think there’s a hard and fast rule about that kind of a thing." 

"You have to tell me if this is-- more than you want to deal with," Steve said. 

"Okay?"

"I mean it, Darcy," he said in his best, for-real Captain America voice. "I don’t want to be taking advantage of you. Of our friendship. Promise."

"I promise," Darcy said, and then added, because wow, things had gotten way too serious, "I mean, I’m pretty sure you have better people to ask if you need help hiding a body, but I think I’m up for pretty much anything else."

Steve choked out a laugh, which, score one for Darcy, but then kind of blew her mind by saying, "I was wondering if you were busy next weekend, for the, uh, whole weekend. And before you answer, you should know that it’s probably not going to be very exciting, and the schedule is more-or-less one thing after another, and it’s mostly sitting around looking interested in, you know, a… a lot of speeches and stuff, but maybe we could have some fun…?" His voice trailed off before he came back. "I’m not making much sense, you should probably just hang up…" he sighed, and there was no fucking way Darcy could leave it there, no matter how much she suspected she should.

"Talk to me, Goose," Darcy said, and again with the bonus points for dragging a laugh out of him, plus extra-extra credit for having introduced him to the glossy glory of _Top Gun_ in the first place.

"I—uh—" 

"Steve," Darcy said. "Just spit it out."

"You know that they've been restoring the _Valkyrie_ , right?" Steve didn't quite manage to keep his voice even, which was not the giant tell of him punching a heavy bag across the room, but was still enough that Darcy knew he was having issues (with a capital ISH) about it all. She metaphorically thumped herself on the head for pushing him, but now was not the time to get into it with herself because she had a bad feeling about what he was about to say.

"Yeah, and you were staying way the hell away from it all."

"Yeah," Steve sighed. "I was."

"But?" Darcy was super-careful to keep her voice as un-judgey as possible, but she definitely had Opinions about people expecting other people, even people named Captain America, to show up and smile while they took pictures of him and what was essentially his coffin.

"They want to use the opening weekend as a fundraiser for a bunch of veterans' support groups and…"

"Dude," Darcy sighed. Her opinions immediately got a whole lot more pointed, at least about the people who were not Captain America. "At least try to hide your buttons so people have to make a little effort before they stomp all over them."

"I think this one is too big to hide," Steve answered, which was probably the truth, so Darcy made a noncommittal noise and let him keep going. "So, it's a whole weekend of stuff and they've been asking me who else is going to be in my party and… I thought maybe… Maybe you might be free."

Part of Darcy wanted to jump up and down, yelling, _He picked me, me, me!_ That was the part that had zero pride and the self-preservation instincts of a lemming. 

It was excruciatingly loud, too. 

The other part of her was running around in circles bleating _Danger, Will Robinson, danger_. That was the part that knew damn good and well that there was no way she was going to get out of a weekend with Steve Rogers with her heart in one piece.

"I—" Darcy started, and then realized she actually had no idea what she was going to say.

"But if you're not, or you don't want to deal with it, I'll be fine," Steve said firm and sure, and, oh, but Darcy knew that self-sacrificing attitude way more than she’d ever dreamed possible. She also might have really, really hated it. _Everybody_ needed somebody sometimes; she was so over how everyone liked to forget that Captain America was an actual person she didn’t even have words for it. 

"I am not busy," Darcy heard herself saying. "And I’d be happy to deal with it all. No problem."

* - * - *

The one big thing that nobody knew about Jane was that her inability to let go of things was not limited to the scientific method.

"Sooooo, the hundred times I’ve heard, ‘Oh, no, it’s fine, Jane. We're just dancing partners. I’m keeping it low-key. Totally chill,’ was only you exercising your lungs? Right, my mistake." 

Also, Darcy thought, people had _no_ idea how sarcastic she could get.

"Okay, I get it," Darcy said. "You think it’s a stupid idea. Wow, newsflash: the genius doctor thinks her assistant is an idiot. Stay tuned for video at eleven."

Never let it be said that Darcy couldn’t out-snark her, though, even if she did kind of lose her cool and end up almost shouting by the end.

"I think," Jane said quietly, "that this is going to end up hurting you."

Darcy leaned both elbows onto the table next to her computer and put her head in her hands. 

"Yeah," she sighed. "I’m pretty sure you’re right, but…" She took a deep breath, and then another. "I know I’ve got the stupid crush going on, but that’s not why I said yes, okay?" 

Jane still looked skeptical. 

"It’s just… Look, Steve _never_ asks for help. Never. He goes off and is ready to do all the stupid stuff by himself. And double that for anything that has to do with emotions. He still can't admit that waking up after almost everybody he knew is dead is heavy stuff, much less that it's hard to deal with it."

"Yes, but--" Jane started.

"I know," Darcy said. "It's not my problem; it's his. I can't solve it for him; he has to do it himself. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera." She spun slowly in her ergonomically tragic desk chair. "I know I've got this _thing_ for him, but under all that, we're friends. Really. I just don't think he needs to go stand next to the plane he was buried alive in and smile all by himself."

"I don't see why it has to be you, though." Jane was even managing to type disapprovingly.

"Because he asked," Darcy said, which, for better or worse, summed everything up with her and Steve.

* - * - *

Darcy was barely finished having it out with Jane when her phone rang, _again_. She was tempted to send it straight to voicemail, but then made the split-second decision to go ahead and vent on whatever idiot was on the other end of the line, because seriously, hadn’t the whole world gotten the memo about how Millennials hated to talk on the phone by now?

"Oh, baby, tell me what you’re going to do to me," Darcy said, using her most shrill, whiny voice, which, if she did say so herself, was pretty damn obnoxious. "I can’t wait to hear alllll about it."

There was a second of silence, and then the universe reminded Darcy that just because she _could_ do something didn’t mean she _should_ , in the form of a guy with a calm, smooth voice saying, "I have Ms. Virginia Potts calling for Ms. Lewis."

Darcy bit back the whimper of humiliation that was dying to come out and, after a second of contemplating bailing and hanging up, managed to mumble, "This is Darcy Lewis."

The guy answered, "Hold for Ms. Potts, please," and the line went to light jazz background music. Darcy groaned and put her head down on the lab table, ignoring Jane’s hissed questions and trying to will back the flush that she knew had reddened her stupid, fair skin from her hairline to her breastbone.

"Darcy, I’m so sorry to bother you during work hours," Pepper said on one of Stark's crystal-clear lines, one of the ones that made it sound like she was sitting right next to Darcy, so clear that she could probably hear Darcy's embarrassment, "but my schedule has been particularly crazy this week and I didn’t want this call to slip through the cracks."

There was a pause, one that dragged out to nearly excruciating lengths before Darcy’s brain finally started working enough to answer. It unfortunately wasn’t quite to the point of actual coherence, but given that she’d already acted like a moron, Darcy supposed stammering out some lame reassurance that interrupting her work wasn't quite on the same level as Pepper's was at least a step up from where she started. 

Darcy didn't exactly know how Pepper did it, but she deftly side-stepped Darcy's verbal flailing without making her feel like even more of an idiot and got to the point of the call, all within twenty seconds.

"Steve let me know that you'd accepted his invitation for the exhibition fundraiser. I’m so glad to hear you'll be joining us and the rest of the Maria Stark Foundation for all of the opening weekend events." Darcy realized she was maybe a bit too premature at letting Steve off the phone before finding out details, like, oh, who else was going and what the schedule might be. "He's always smiling when he tells me about your dance excursions; I know he'll be happy to have you there for the events."

"I hope so," Darcy answered. "He, uh, didn't really get into the details. I mean, I figure there are lots of things happening, but I've got no idea what they all are."

"I wish I could say I was surprised, but that would be a lie and we'd both know it," Pepper said dryly. 

Before Darcy had met Pepper last Thanksgiving, she'd had no idea how deep the well of sarcasm went behind her perfect-CEO-cover. 

"It is the exact reason I'm calling." Someone said something in the background, their voice muffled and indistinct (Darcy was totally flashing back to the old Snoopy cartoons, where the grown-ups all said _wha-wha-WHA-wha-wha_ and nothing else.) Pepper came back to Darcy saying, "I'm so sorry, I need to take this other call, but Andrew, my assistant for all Stark Foundation affairs, will be calling you immediately. He has all the details and will take care of you."

She was gone before Darcy could say good-bye, and then her phone was ringing again, with the aforementioned Andrew and _his_ assistants on the line. Darcy, giving in to the inevitable, put her phone on speaker so Jane could listen in, too, and spent the next _hour_ going through the schedule. Her email pinged constantly--Andrew's assistants with the daily event breakdowns, questions as to any food allergies, whether she preferred aisle- or window-seats (Andrew apologized that they couldn't send a Stark plane for her on such short notice, but swore she'd at least be flying business class; Darcy, thinking of her last ultra-discounted flight, where she'd literally fought her way to a seat, managed not to laugh hysterically.) All that was crazy enough, but it was when they got to 'appropriate attire' that things really went bonkers.

"Ms. Potts is aware that this is very last-minute and she has asked me to assure you that we will do our very best to assist you with the necessary wardrobe."

Darcy would like to say there was no problem, but who would she be kidding? She had exactly two outfits that weren't intern-slob-chic, and one of those was back home, probably being worn on the sly by one of her two million younger cousins.

"Uh, I'm on an intern's budget here--" Darcy started to say.

"Yes, of course," Andrew interjected, his voice so tactful it was almost painful. "We'll definitely keep that in mind, but the Captain has already insisted that all financial matters be funneled through his accounts."

"Oh, he has, has he?" Darcy muttered. Steve was usually super-sweet, but he could be kinda high-handed at times, and this looked like a yelling match about to happen.

"I'll let you discuss that with him," Andrew said quickly. Darcy glowered at the phone, but it wasn't this dude's fault Steve had gotten to him before Darcy did, so yeah, she was definitely going to _discuss_ this with Steve.

"Given the time and distance constraints," Andrew was saying when Darcy snapped her attention back to the call, "I feel the most efficient way to achieve our objective is for you to fax me your measurements and I'll have the stylists curate a selection of options and have them available for each event." He hesitated, as though he was checking an item off a list, and then added, "There will, of course, be a seamstress standing by to ensure proper fit."

Darcy looked down at her faded, worn 'Astronomers do it in the dark!' t-shirt, the one with the neck stretched out and the hem completely unraveled. It hadn't ever fit right across her boobs ( _nothing_ ever fit right there), but she'd mostly worn it with a flannel shirt on top, so the (lack of) fit didn't really matter. 

"Sure," she said in as bright of a tone as she could manage. "I'll get right on the measurements. As soon as I can find someone to help."

"Excellent," Andrew murmured, now sounding distracted, like he was done with her and moved on to the next 'challenge'. "Oh! Do you prefer front or back clasp on your brassieres?"

Darcy stared at Jane, who was staring right back at Darcy, completely at a loss. "I--uh," Darcy finally stammered. 

"My recommendation would be adapt to whatever works best with the _ensemble_ in question," Andrew said. "After all, it will only be for a few hours each."

 _A few hours?_ Jane mouthed at her. _EACH?_

"I--sure?" Darcy said, but then cleared her throat and found herself a backbone. "I'll text you the brands I wear--I'm open to other possibilities but I will not wear something that doesn't fit, so please keep that in mind."

"Of course," Andrew answered, after a split second where Darcy could almost see the gears spinning in his head. She breathed up a small sigh of relief that he was the kind who only gave respect to the people who wouldn't let him get away with shit and not the kind who'd take offense at being told what to do. "I'll be sure the stylists are aware of the proper brands and styles for all options."

They went through make-up and skincare options pretty quickly--luckily, Andrew didn't have any opinions on those, only wanted a list of Darcy's preferred brands so that they could have a fully stocked bag for her in case her luggage got lost on the flights. Darcy ended up texting pictures of the stuff in her backpack, which was good enough apparently.

With a final request for pictures, both full-body and one of just her face and hair ("taken," he added, "under natural rather than fluorescent lighting," so they'd know the colors were true and could "assess palette options to coordinate with Captain Rogers' projected attire"), Andrew ended the call and left Darcy and Jane staring at each other in something that was way closer to horror than a weekend at a couple of museums would have warranted before Darcy met Jane and Thor and got sucked into the world of super-heroes.

"Oh, my god," Darcy finally groaned as yet another email pinged into her account. "What the fuck have I gotten myself into?"


	2. The Journey

The FedEx envelopes started arriving before Darcy even left the lab later that night. Plane confirmations, itineraries, limo pick-ups, hair and make-up questionnaires... Darcy meant to go through it all, but her head was kind of swimming and she ended up shoving everything in her backpack and promising herself she'd look at it in the morning. 

That might have worked better if she hadn't started googling the last few events Steve had shown up to, to see ~~who he was with~~ what he was wearing. It was research, Darcy swore to herself, but she couldn't even make herself believe that for more than a couple of seconds. And she damn well knew better, but she couldn't help reading the comments.

Yeah, so that was a shitshow. 

There was one repeat date, apparently a SHIELD agent, very attractive, and presumably super-competent, because SHIELD didn't tend to employ air-heads even if the guys Darcy had met the most tended to be all cut from the same, distressingly clone-y cloth, and the internet _eviscerated_ her and her clothes and … yeah. So. Bad.

After a 'refreshing' night of nightmares where she got shoved out on Steve's arm wearing nothing more than old granny panties and the kind of ugly bras that were sold in Wal-Marts, Darcy stumbled into the lab the next morning ready to call it all off. 

"Who am I kidding?" she whined to Jane. "I am _not_ the kind of girl Captain America shows up to these kind of events with. I mean, I'm sure the actual Miss America could fill in--"

But Jane, of all people, was not buying it, and of course, Jane being Jane and completely uninterested in tact, hit Darcy head on with a cool, snippy, "So much for caring, I guess."

"Wait," Darcy sputtered, but Jane wasn't done with her yet.

"I _thought_ you were the kind of person who was there for her friends." Jane hadn't even let Darcy get her first cup of coffee down; it was completely unfair. "I didn't think you cared about the Captain America part."

"I _don't_ ," Darcy snapped.

"I can sort of see where you could leave that part hanging, but I actually did think you cared more about Steve. Or that's what you're always telling me."

"Okay, now wait a minute--"

"No," Jane said, her eyes narrowed. "Because what I'm hearing is that your friend Steve, who you say never asks for help, did exactly that, and you're willing to turn him down because you don't meet some arbitrary societal image of suitable arm candy?" 

"Well, when you put it that way," Darcy muttered.

"How else should I put it?"

" _Fine_ ," Darcy yelled. "I will go and let everyone tell me how nice it is that Steve isn't hung up on looks, how wonderful it is that he must obviously value a great personality, which we all know is code for--"

"Don't. Say. That." Jane could get really icy when she wanted to and apparently Darcy was triggering all of her Elsa grooves. "Steve asked _you_. He could have asked anyone, we all know this. He wants _you_ there. Fuck the rest of them."

"Okay," Darcy said in a small and pathetic voice. "It's just--"

"Give me your phone," Jane said, holding out her hand. "Outside, now. I'll take the pictures they wanted, in their precious natural light, and then we'll get measurements, and we will let the people who work for the CEO of Stark Industries take care of you and you will relax and go hang out with the guy who is going to break your heart."

As pep talks went, it was pretty weird, but what about Darcy's life hadn't been utterly bonkers ever since Thor had dropped in and rearranged reality? The answer to that was _nothing_ , so she took a deep breath and followed Jane out the door.

* - * - *

Once the photos got taken and the measurements measured, Darcy sent them off to the uber-efficient Andrew and then concentrated on getting everything set up at the lab to keep running in her absence. It wasn't that she was indispensable or anything, but the weekend Steve had been talking about apparently started on Thursday and didn't finish up until super-late on Sunday so she wasn't going to be around for a solid five days and she hadn't set up all the damn processes and procedures to have it all fall apart because she was off getting her heart stomped by Captain America's nice-guy alter-ego.

And then, the other thing she had to do was figure out how to be her own person while she surfed the giant tsunami that was Steve being Cap in public. She packed her favorite jeans and her old Docs, tucked a bunch of paperbacks in her carry-on and splurged on a new lipstick from Fenty so she'd always have that bit of armor with her.

By the time the car came to pick her up and take her to the airport in Albuquerque, she felt like she maybe had found at least a bit of equilibrium. She was going to offer support to one of the sweetest guys she knew, while he did his best to help other people. The fact that she'd climb said sweet guy like a fucking tree was beside the point (as was the fact that she wasn't _only_ aching to ride him until they both passed out, but also liked him as a person and had fun with him and loved to tease him and make him laugh, and holy _fuck_ , she was so screwed.)

"I may need to call for a keep-it-real pep-talk," Darcy said as she climbed into the car. "I know you'll be happy to tell me I'm an idiot."

Jane sighed and rolled her eyes, and then the car was pulling away, but Darcy held onto the fact that Jane hadn't told her not to call, so there was totally someone there to help her hold it all together in the face of the Star Spangled Man With A Plan. 

They got to the airport in plenty of time (Darcy was usually only there in time to stress her way through security and run for the gate) and the driver turned out to be like a tour guide, too, shepherding Darcy to the fancy people's lounge, where she played it safe and only got popcorn and a Shirley Temple (with extra, extra maraschino cherries because the bartender was an awesome mind-reader who took one look at Darcy and knew she needed the moral support of a glass half-full of festive marinated fruit.) They got to the gate in some mysterious way, too, so there was no fighting through the terminal and since Darcy was in Business class (she had a whole row to herself, which was totally unprecedented) she could (and did) swan in at the last second and had plenty of room for her carry-on _and_ a super-nice flight attendant who got her yet another Shirley Temple (though this one had only a normal amount of fruity garnish goodness) as they took off. 

All in all, Darcy was liking this whole flying the Stark-Cap Friendly Skies even before they landed in Virginia (on a runway that seriously looked like it was going to dunk them into the river) and instead of yet another minion, Steve was standing there in a ball cap at the end of where the escalator and people-mover dumped Darcy out after she'd gotten off the plane.

"Wow, a personalized pick-up," Darcy said, leaning up on her toes to peck a little kiss on his cheek. She even managed to do it without freaking out from the rush of _omgomgomg_ that was screaming through her brain at the unexpected opportunity. "I'm very honored."

"This is probably where I should tell you that I couldn't stand the fussing that everyone was doing so I took off and then thought I could be nice and come get you," Steve said with a sheepish shrug.

"You're only telling me that because Tony's going to rat you out and yell it at me as soon as I see him, aren't you?" Darcy might be working on the mother of all crushes, but she wasn't born yesterday.

"Got it in one," Steve sighed. 

"Honesty is good," Darcy cracked back. "Even if it's only to sidestep emotional blackmail."

"On that theme," Steve said, "I, uh, came on my bike, so I don't think we can bring your carryon stuff." Darcy must have been working a really good 'are you _kidding_ me?' expression because he hurried on, pointing to a guy who was definitely more of who Darcy had been expecting, and adding, "But that's okay, because this is Jonathon from the Stark Foundation, and he has an SUV, so you can ride with him and I'll follow behind."

Jonathon was older, very Silver-Foxy, and looked like he was used to all the antics a person would expect to be happening in Tony Stark's vicinity. Darcy smiled at him, and then said, "Orrrr…. Would it be tacky if I asked you to take my bags and I'll ride with the big golden retriever here?" 

She tipped her head toward Steve, who was at least taking the comparison with a dog with a little attitude. (He used to not know how to react when she poked at him and she'd been trying to get him to poke back rather than treat her with kid gloves, because it was kinda boring to be on some Polite Respect pedestal, especially when she knew he could give Natasha a hard time right back.)

"No problem at all, miss, so long as you go straight to the hotel--I was supposed to have you there in less than an hour."

"We can probably make it by then," Darcy said, turning her head to smile sweetly at Steve. "You do have a helmet for me, right?" 

"Even over-eager puppies know better than to ride without a helmet," Steve said pointedly. Darcy gave him a high-five and then handed over her carry-on to Jonathon.

"C'mon, Rover, let's go," she said to Steve, taking his arm and mentally giving herself all the bonus points for not flipping out at just the thought of riding with him. 

They made their way through the terminal and out to short-term parking (because of course Steve Rogers didn't take advantage of VIP parking at the airport.) Darcy had a moment of panic when her brain caught up to how very super _extremely_ close she was going to be sitting behind him. Sure, she knew _intellectually_ she was going to have her arms wrapped around his waist when they rode, but she hadn't quite worked out that his butt was going to be _right there_ or that he only had a t-shirt on and she thought it might be some kind of extra thin material because holy _crap_ there were acres of skin, again, _right there_. (She was really, really really not thinking about the portions of her own anatomy that were going to be pressed up against his back because she wasn't sure she wasn't going to pass out at the implications.)

"Darcy," Steve was saying, oblivious to all the dirty, _dirty_ thoughts whooshing through Darcy's brain. "I need you to pay attention while I go through all the safety stuff." Darcy pulled herself together and actually did focus, but only because she didn't want to get splatted before she even saw the first of the outfits she was supposed to be wearing. (Well, that, and because she felt uber-guilty for indulging in some extremely specific, slutty fantasies while Steve was (of course) worried about her being safe. Guilt was totally her super-power; her bubbe-in-heaven was probably beaming with pride.)

Steve handed her a helmet and tucked her messenger bag/purse into the side compartment of the bike before he threw one leg over and reached back to help Darcy do the same. 

"Ready?" he asked.

"Wait, wait," Darcy said, pulling her phone out of her back pocket. "Selfie time!"

Steve rolled his eyes at her, but took the phone when she handed it to him and then held it out the length of his arm, exactly like Darcy had taught him the second time they'd gone dancing after the crazy Thanksgiving they'd spent at Stark Tower. Darcy leaned up and got in the frame and flashed a V for victory sign. Steve tapped the screen and then brought the phone in close for Darcy's approval. 

"Excellent," Darcy said, taking the phone. Steve looked fabulous, because duh, he never didn't look fab, and Darcy herself was looking pretty okay, if she did say so herself, bright-eyed and grinning. She tapped out a quick _if i die, plz know i went happy_ , and texted it with the picture.

"Are we ready now?" Steve asked with a tiny bit of an edge to his voice. Darcy gave him a thumbs up and settled herself behind him.

"Jane," she said to Steve, pulling on her helmet and touching the switch to activate the radio, like he’d shown her. It was very high tech and all; Darcy was not one to get giddy about electronic toys, but it was fun. "She probably won't see it until she falls asleep flat on her face next to her computer and then wakes up and can't remember why I'm not there, but she will, eventually, find her phone and there we'll be."

"There we'll be," Steve agreed, kicking the bike to life and turning to check for oncoming traffic. Darcy squeaked a little but put her feet where he'd shown her and got her arms around Steve's waist. _I *will* go happy_ , she repeated to herself, holding on for dear life as he took off.


	3. The Modern Day Fairy Godmothers

It was definitely summer, sweltering hot as Steve was inching them along the road, the river on one side and random buildings on the other, but then he dodged around a final few trucks and Darcy would admit to laughing with excitement as they zipped up the on-ramp to a bridge, the Washington Monument high on the other side of the river, and the Jefferson Memorial on their left, the white stone almost pink from the setting sun.

"We're gonna be late," Steve said over the helmet intercom. "Hold on, okay?"

Darcy managed to squeak out an affirmative as he sped up and started weaving in and out of traffic. She'd be proud at not closing her eyes, except she actuallly thought it was a stupid move. Not seeing her impending death was striking her as something nice. Then again, she was on a motorcycle with Captain America--she really needed to buck up and enjoy the ride.

Fortunately, the hotel wasn't too far away from the bridge. They looped around the lawn that edged the Washington Monument and made another turn and Steve was pulling up in front of an old-fashioned, ornate building. A doorman came rushing up to take Darcy's messenger bag (like she was too dainty to carry it, wtf), and almost before Darcy could blink, she was surrounded by people in very chic black, all of them with headsets on. They bustled her away from Steve and into the super-retro-fancy lobby and over to where another set were holding the elevator for the entourage.

"We're on the way up," one of the women said. "Start the shower."

"Um?" Darcy said. "My bags are--"

"Still on the GW Parkway," someone said behind her. "Jonathon has been in contact, but the traffic--"

"Doesn't matter," the first woman said. "We have tonight's full wardrobe in the suite." She turned to look at Darcy, which was, y'know, nice. At least someone knew she existed. "As of right now, we have 47 minutes for you to do a fitting, shower, do hair and make-up, and be at the reception area in time for the press gauntlet."

"I, uh, showered before I left--?" Darcy thought it was a valid point, but everyone was shaking their heads at her.

"Hours ago, and then the flight, not to mention what that helmet and the wind did to your hair--"

"Totally worth it," Darcy interrupted, and hey, everyone kinda liked that, there were smiles all around.

"Well, of course, dearie," said one of the guys. " _Nobody_ 's going to fault you for taking _that_ offer."

"It just … puts a bit of a time-constraint on us," the first lady said. "Ms. Potts made it very clear that we're not letting you out in front of the vultures without our best efforts, so that's what we're doing."

Darcy really wanted to ask about what she was wearing, but they were apparently at her floor, because the doors were opening and they were off. A door halfway down the hall opened, with another person-in-black sticking her head out to make sure it was Darcy's crew she was greeting.

Darcy let herself be swept along again, down the hall and into the room--which was a suite, holy crap--and right up to the racks of clothes that took up all the available space in the living room part, which was where the pretty fantasy all fell apart, because deargodinheaven, the dresses on the rack were _so bad_.

"Okay," Headset Lady #1 was saying, as she rattled the hangers, spreading them out so Darcy could see even more of them and their hipster hideousness, "These are the options for tonight; we used the measurements you sent but I need you to narrow this down so we can do any final adjustments while you're showering and doing hair and make-up--" 

Darcy was trying incredibly hard not to do the thing she did where every single emotion flew across her face, but she obviously wasn't succeeding. Partly, that was because it served her right for blowing off those seemingly-stupid surveys Andrew had sent (she'd _talked_ to the guy, but obviously her communication skills were lacking), but mostly because she could already see the fucking bloodbath she was in for on all the Cap forums. 

But. Now was not the time to huddle in a pitiful ball. She was here. She would do this.

She took a deep breath and tried to plaster on a smile, which also probably wasn't succeeding, but ohgod, the _clothes_. Her nightmares where she was basically Cinderella off to the ball in granny panties and bra were better than this.

"I'm sorry," Darcy said to all the pairs of eyes looking at her from around the suite. "Um, okay, this, it's a cocktail reception tonight, right?"

"Yes," Headset Lady said, clearly, _clearly_ not happy, but strangely enough, Darcy wasn't thinking that her not-happiness was directed at Darcy.

"What's Pepper wearing?" Darcy asked. "I mean, uh, Ms. Potts--"

Headset Lady swung around and looked at Tablet Guy who tapped a couple of times and then flipped the StarkPad around to show an outfit laid out on a white background. Darcy got a glimpse of sleek lines and stiletto heels before he said, "Prada."

She turned back around to look at Darcy. "That's very on-point with her style. I don't think it's yours."

"Fuck, no," Darcy blurted out. Her heart was pounding and it was starting to be hard to breathe. "I didn't mean I wanted to dress like her, I--I don't know, I guess I wanted to see what she thought would work--"

"Darcy," Headset Lady said in a very soothing voice, so soothing Darcy actually found herself backing off from the panic attack, "How would you like to dress?"

"I--"

"If you could wear anything in the world to this evening's event, where you want to feel pretty and happy and not worry at all that you're standing next to Captain America, what would you want it to be?" 

Darcy choked at the standing-next-to-Cap thing, but everyone was watching her and she got this wave of _here to help_ off of everyone, no being aggravated because she didn't like what they'd already picked out for her.

"Don't overthink, just tell me the first thing that pops into your head--"

"Vintage," Darcy said quickly. "I mean, nothing that's true vintage ever fits me but I like that style--"

She broke off as one of the minions dove for another rack, digging through it in a state of controlled panic, while Headset Lady keyed on her microphone and snapped, "Did Rogers decide on Class A's for tonight or is he going civilian? Well, _find out_."

"Found it," the minion called, passing off a zipped-up dress bag and then burrowing down under everything to emerge a few seconds later with a box of other stuff. "We had it as one of the options for the main reception so it's maybe a little too much for this evening, but with some kicky jewelry and the right attitude…"

"Okay," Headset Lady said to Darcy, motioning for her to look at the dress emerging from the bag. "Very Christina-Hendricks-in- _Mad-Men_ \--does that work for you?"

"Oh," Darcy breathed, reaching out to touch the fabric--a deep plum with a subtle brocade. The bodice looked fitted, but the skirt was super-full. "It's beautiful, but, oh god, will it make me look like a couch?"

"Not if we've got it fitted right," Headset Lady said with grim determination. She nodded to two other ladies who had nifty mini workstations set up, with sewing stuff and a steamer and all kinds of things that Darcy had no idea what to do with, which probably addressed how slack her attitude about clothes actually was. "And we _will_ get it fitted properly." 

"All right, people, we're on the clock," she said and Darcy got shepherded behind a folding screen so she could strip all the way down and start back up with the bra and spanx and everything else that went with the dress. Headset Lady herself stepped behind the screen to lower the dress over Darcy's head and get it settled before walking her back out to step up on a small raised platform with triple mirrors around it. The alterations team descended before Darcy could really get a good look at herself, pinning and chalking and Darcy didn't even know what else. When they were done, though, she did manage to get a glimpse and it was fine, she guessed. The dress was beautiful but she looked kinda… dumpy in it. 

Headset Lady noticed (Darcy was beginning to suspect the headset was actually some SHIELD mind-reading technology) and said, "Go up on your toes, like you're wearing heels," and the second Darcy did as she was told, the whole line of the dress took on a new look. She stared at Headset Lady, who smiled kindly back at her. "Wait 'til you see it with the kickass shoes that go with it."

"I'm holding you to that," Darcy said, and Headset Lady let a brief, satisfied smirk cross her face before she clapped her hands and sent Darcy off to shower--" _Four_ minutes, don't worry about your hair; we'll take care of it--" and started snapping orders to the rest of the room. "I want to see every single choice we have here--we're re-evaluating everything Andrew thought he heard, bless his heart---"

Darcy ran. The bedroom was set up like a salon, with mirrors and dryers and more make-up than Darcy had probably owned in her life, and in the (giant, holy crap) bathroom the shower was steamy and there was a white, fluffy robe hanging on the back of the door. She zipped through the actual cleaning part of the shower as fast as possible so she could stand under the (fantastic) water cascading from the pounding massage part of the showerhead and get herself loosened up a little before the alarm went off and she wrapped up in the towelling robe and headed back out into the fray again. 

They somehow had a hair-washing station set up in the corner, and even on their extremely time-boxed schedule, Darcy got an amazing mini scalp massage that did incredible things to knock down the tension. They wrapped her head up in one of those pricey microfiber drying towels and shepherded her to the next station, where the chair laid back and somebody laid some kind of cooling sachet on her (hastily closed) eyes and each of her hands got a dedicated manicurist. 

"Sorry," Headset Lady said, "it's only going to be a basic polish job tonight; we don't have time for anything fancy."

Darcy wasn't exactly sure how they had time for anything, but these people clearly knew their business, because she was sitting back up with a French manicure before she had time to catch her breath. The turban thingie got pulled off her hair and somebody went over her with a pair of scissors, snipping here and there, and then there were four people with giant hair-dryers gently scrunching her hair. Once most of the water was out of her hair (which was faster than seemed possible, but Darcy guessed that was what happened when you had four hair dryers going at the same time) that number faded down to one guy with a giant round brush, a spray bottle of some magic, and the biggest flat-iron Darcy had ever seen. He worked the back of her head, while the make-up girls swooped in and started painting her face.

"So," the first girl said, "we were planning on a completely minimal palette because we thought you were going for a sort of hipster merged with classic look, but with that dress, we're going to play up your eyes a lot more and go for a little bolder lip, but you can check it out every step, okay?"

Darcy managed to tell her about the Fenty lip stain she had in her messenger bag, and they sent someone off to retrieve it.

Headset Lady kept walking in and out of the bedroom, checking on everyone's progress and coordinating with the ladies doing the alterations and counting down the time. She was also in what seemed like constant contact with the somebody who had yet to verify what Steve was wearing, which was not making anyone on Darcy's team happy. Darcy herself was maybe freaked at how she was only standing there with her arms over her head in preparation for getting into the dress at T-minus-3-minutes (and counting) but everyone else was actually pretty mellow, like they'd done this before and everything was cool, which turned out to be spot on. The dress got lowered onto Darcy, and somebody zipped her up while two other somebodies were fluffing her skirt and the underskirts and the make-up and hair people got in to do final tweaks, all at once. 

At T-minus-60-seconds, Darcy stepped into the slightly-higher-than-kitten-heels and walked out from behind the privacy screens to take a final twirl in front of the mirrors.

"Holy fucking shit," she hissed as she got a proper look at her reflection. The dress was somehow not just laying there, halfway covering a too-curvy body, but working with it, the neckline high enough to keep her from falling out of the bodice while still not hiding the fact that she had a chest and was not afraid to show it. The guy who'd been manning the tablet stepped up behind her and clasped a necklace around her neck; it was a pendant and the modern, angular shape of the polished stone drew direct attention to the cleavage that the dress was showcasing. Darcy didn't really mind her curves these days (it had been awful to try to deal with the attitudes she got in high school), but this was definitely showing the girls off. The purple of the fabric made her pale skin look like a glory rather than the curse all-black did to it, and the hair and make-up finished everything off with a polished, but still casual statement that said she knew that this was not a traditional look, but it was _her_ look and fuck all the haters. 

"I have no idea how that all happened, but you people are magic," she said to Headset Lady, who nodded while she was draping some kind of a wrap-thingy (Bubbe would have called it a schmatte, but since Darcy was pretty sure it cost more than Bubbe's old house, she decided not to mention that out loud) around Darcy's shoulders. "Thank youuuu," she sang to the rest of the crowd.

"That's what we do," Headset Lady said, hustling Darcy out the door and down to the (being held) elevator. "But you're welcome, and we'll see you tomorrow morning for brunch prep." 

"Get her up to the patio and hand her off to Potts or Rogers, _only_ ," she said to the elevator escort and Darcy was off.


	4. The Cocktail Reception

"Hi," Darcy said breathlessly as she came rocketing off the elevator. She must have been getting some kind of immunization to the power of Steve in uniforms, because she only noticed that he looked nice, not that she was going to lose control of her brain if she didn't keep her thoughts locked down.

"Hey," he answered, holding out a hand that Darcy took and tried to pretend she wasn't clinging. "You, um, look, ah, pretty?"

"Rogers," Tony said from behind Steve. He was wearing an actual suit and tie, but still had sneakers on, which, Darcy supposed, meant that he really did have more money than anyone else in the room. "You're a disgrace to gentlemen everywhere." He turned to Darcy and smiled something that almost looked sincere. "Hey, kid, you're looking damn good. You clean up nice."

"Thanks," Darcy couldn't resist twirling to show off the full skirt. "So do you."

Tony smirked, but then Pepper walked up and it turned into a real smile, which Darcy absolutely found ridiculously romantic. 

"Thank you," Darcy said to Pepper. "For the stylists and all--" She spread her skirt out a little, a kind of a _ta-da_. "They were super-awesome."

"You two look adorable," Pepper said, smiling kindly. "I love the vintage style; it goes so well with Steve's uniform."

Darcy did her best not to think of all the hissed yelling that had been going on about whether Steve had picked the uniform or not, pretending it was serendipity and left it at that.

One of Pepper's assistants stepped in, nodding towards the end of the room and Pepper turned back to everyone and said, "Okay, two minutes to photographers."

Steve cocked his head at Darcy. "Selfie?" 

Darcy was so proud she might explode. "Absolutely." She handed over her phone and got herself settled under Steve's arm. She couldn't quite get her smile into something that wasn't huge and cheesy, but since it matched all the huge, cheesy feelings that were swarming her, she mentally shrugged and sent the shot off to Jane. 

She was sure there were/would be dire predictions being muttered in New Mexico, but Darcy was absolutely riding this to her grave.

* - * - *

What nobody realized was that one of the invited, freelance photogs had gotten off a shot of Steve and Darcy taking their selfie, and despite the approximately two zillion proper photos that got taken that night, that one was the one that everyone wanted to use. Darcy couldn't even blame them--it was fun and low-key and natural, with both of them relaxed and happy and chill, but it seemed like a waste of the 15 minutes of blinding torture from the official photo shoot.

She was still seeing spots from the mob of photographers and all their flashes going off in her face all at the same time, when Steve said, "Ready?" and the doors at the far end of the patio/bar area opened and a fucking _horde_ of well-dressed Washingtonians swarmed into the event room.

"Whatever happened to fashionably late?" Darcy whined before she got herself under control and stepped up to stand next to Steve. 

Pepper smiled a sharp, wolfish smile. "Nobody's too jaded when Captain America's on the guest list," she said as she and Tony sailed out to part the metaphorical waters and started diverting at least a bit of the flood. 

Steve laced the fingers of his left hand through Darcy's right, which meant he was still able to shake people's hands but gave her an excuse not to have to do the same, and everything got going. Steve was good at it, all the hello's and good-to-see-you's and variations on small talk, but Darcy could tell pretty quick that it was a mask that he dropped down over the real him. It made sense--so many people wanted a piece of him that even if he only gave a tiny bit to each one of them, he'd be gone before the night was over. 

The other thing she could tell was that he was _terrible_ about taking care of himself. The waiters who were passing drinks and all the fancy hors d'oeuvres were totally as zeroed in on Steve as the guests, so there was always someone hovering close by, but Steve never stopped. Darcy finally resorted to taking glasses herself (all the waiters were super-helpful and would go get her a regular Coke or a water as soon as she turned her head and caught their eye to mouth the words) and literally putting it into Steve's hand during any break in the conversations. The first time she did it, he looked at the glass like he'd never seen such a thing before and then looked at her.

"Drink, dummy," she hissed. "Before the next society bitch gets her claws into you."

He snorted a very unphotogenic laugh at that, but he did as he was told and drained the glass in a single swallow. Darcy's heart almost stopped at the way he looked with his throat arched back and working hard to swallow ( _Down, girl_ , she told herself frantically. _Down, down, down_ ), but she managed not to pass out from sheer thirst and took the glass back as he turned to greet, oh yeah, a Georgetown richie rich divorcee (if Darcy was any judge, which, hello, she knew every season of _Real Housewives_ practically by heart, so fuck, yeah, she was a judge.)

"Keep them coming," Darcy muttered to her waiter buddy, turning back right in time to smile with poisonous sweetness at the possessive way Steve was being eyed. She was standing _right there_ , and just because there wasn't really anything going on between her and Steve didn't mean she was abandoning him to the cougars.

The rest of the night kept on pretty much the same way, except the waiters alternated bringing water and plates of food that Darcy could stand there and hold and Steve would munch on without thinking about it. (Plus, they were suuuuuper nice and brought Darcy champagne every time her glass got low, so she could check the 'drinking bubbly in a fancy dress' ticky box off her list of Life Things That Could Be Cool. It did mean she was sort of fuzzy-headed when Steve led her out onto the dance floor, but that was probably also for the best because she couldn't quite muster up any stress about all those people looking at her.)

"You have to twirl me," Darcy said. "We cannot let this dress go to waste."

"Yes, ma'am," Steve said, and they were off. The orchestra leader caught on that they actually knew their way around a Big Band dance floor and fed them four good songs in a row. Darcy was breathless and laughing by the time they took a break and Steve actually looked like Steve, not the Captain America clone he'd been playing most of the night. Darcy felt bad that they couldn't keep going, but her two favorite waiters were standing by with trays and she guessed the night had reached some sort of stage where people didn't expect Steve to be in receiving-line mode and didn't come interrupt while he was clearing downing gallons of water and eating all the things. They'd just started coming back by when Tony and Pepper swooped by in some sort of extravagant foxtrot interpretation and Darcy found herself back on the dance floor with Tony Stark of all people, while Steve and Pepper were looking very smooth and easy on their own trajectory.

"Nice job, kid," Tony said. 

"Well, I mean, I hear you're the one who taught him the basics," Darcy said. He danced like he had a million things going on in his head and was basically relying on muscle memory to get through the steps, but he wasn't being obnoxious or dismissive, so Darcy relaxed and let herself follow. "I just went out and helped enable all the practicing."

"Yeah, I was actually talking about keeping our guy at least semi-relaxed through this hellscape, but the dancing's a nice touch, too."

"Oh," Darcy said, cocking her head as she looked at him. "So, I'm not the only one who thinks this whole thing is kinda gruesome?"

"Nope," Tony answered. "Pepper was livid when she found out--which, I gotta tell you, was nice not to be the cause of." He spun Darcy out and back, and picked up the steps like there was nothing to it at all. "But, you know, Captain Clean-Cut isn't going to not step up when somebody asks, so--"

"Sounds like we need to screen the askers a little better," Darcy said.

"Ms. Potts absolutely agrees," Tony said. "There's a project plan and everything."

"Don't take this in a weird way, but I totally want to be her when I grow up," Darcy said dreamily. 

"Don't we all?" Tony muttered, but before Darcy could say anything, he spun her out and then back in, crisp and snappy and clearly an end to that particular conversation. 

Bless his heart, Darcy thought, but he really did not like talking about feelings.

* - * - *

The rest of the night was a blur, more inane conversation balanced by a few more turns around the dance floor, and Steve, Tony, and Pepper up by the band, making some kind of a thank you toast to everyone who'd paid their money and come on out so they could say they'd met Captain America.

Well, they didn't actually _say_ that, but that was what they meant. 

Darcy really, seriously hoped the night had been obscenely expensive, because holy crap but these people were total psychic vampires and she had no idea how Steve held up as well as he did with how they were clearly only marginally keeping their well-manicured claws from literally pawing at him.

And yes, that was a shit-ton of adverbs, but it was not even close to how much venting Darcy wanted to do about the situation, except, of course, there wasn't anyone to vent to, because God knew Steve didn't need to deal with her feelings on top of everything else. 

"So," Darcy said as they finally made their escape and were riding the elevator back down to the floor the Stark Foundation had reserved, "breakfast in the morning?"

"Yeah," Steve said with a sigh, "but you don't have to come if you don't want to."

"Hey," Darcy answered. "There's a rack of clothes in the room with a big old sign on them that says _Breakfast_ \--which I'm pretty sure you're paying for and which we will talk about later, thank you--so if there are clothes, I'm going."

"I don't think I've ever heard that line of reasoning before," Steve said dryly, "but I guess if it works for you…"

"The modern take on that is 'You do you, bb,'" Darcy said airily. 

"Good to know," Steve said, but his eyes were smiling, so score one for Darcy the Millennial. 

Being the old-fashioned kind of guy that he was, Steve walked her right up to the door of her suite and held her hand while he said good-night. "You looked beautiful and you made the whole thing go better."

"Did Tony tell you to say that?" Darcy asked archly, mostly because Steve telling her she was beautiful kinda made her brain go off on wild, impossible tangents and if she didn't joke about it, she was going to say something embarrassing and reveal her pathetic, pathetic crush. To her horror, Steve's smile faded and he kind of blushed and shook his head.

"Oh, uh, no--that was--I probably should have asked him; he would have told me how to say it better--"

"Oh, god, I'm such a moron," Darcy moaned. She _was_ , she really, really was. "I'm sorry, that was unbelievably rude and, I mean, I'm--it was nice of you to ask me and I had a super great time--"

"Okay, I know that can't be true," Steve said. There still was a slight flush along his cheekbones, but at least he was meeting Darcy's eyes, so maybe she hadn't completely fucked everything about their friendship up.

"No, really," Darcy insisted. "I mean, yeah, the crowds were a little wild and the photographers are seriously scary, but I'm in this amazing dress and we did get to dance, and, oh my god, the champagne was awesome and--"

"Okay," Steve said, relaxing at least some, "I believe you."

"Thank you very much for inviting me," Darcy said, determined not to screw up _again_. "Thank you even more for telling me I looked pretty--"

"Not just pretty," Steve interrupted. "Beautiful."

Darcy's mouth snapped shut at that, and she stared at him for long enough that he shifted uncomfortably.

"Thank you," she whispered finally. Steve smiled at her, very tentative and sweet, and without overthinking it somehow, she went up on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. "I'm glad I made it more fun for you, too."

"You did." 

"Okay," Darcy said. "I'll see you in the morning." She smiled. "For breakfast, where I seriously hope they have coffee, because I function so much better with caffeine."

"I'll make sure of it," Steve said, and Darcy was not too proud to admit that she basically ran away and into her room at that point, but only because she was staggeringly aware that she was about two seconds away from climbing the guy right there in the hallway.

"Down, girl," she muttered to herself. "Down, down, _down_." She was going to have to keep saying that a _lot_. She'd only been around him for a couple of hours; she seriously needed to get a grip on everything or she was never going to make it through the rest of the weekend. She stared at herself in the mirror, the gorgeous dress and the hair that hadn't dared to lose its style and the make-up that somehow hadn't melted off her face because Pepper's stylists were seriously pros and finally admitted that there really wasn't any way she _was_ going to make it through this weekend without major heartbreak. At the very least, though, she could try to live up to the effort everyone was expending on her. 

"You can cry on the plane home," Darcy told her reflection. "Right now, you're drinking two bottles of water and going straight to bed so you can hit the ground running in the morning."

The glamour-girl in the mirror nodded back firmly, like she knew what she was doing; and real-life Darcy shoved all her whiplash emotions into a mental box labeled _Later, Bitch_ and went to find a pair of sweats and a t-shirt so she could feel like herself while she slept.


	5. The Brunch

The brunch started at 10:30 but they had to leave for the press line at a little before 9, so the stylists were at the door at 7, which felt like 5 to Darcy’s Mountain Time-adjusted brain. Fortunately, it hadn’t been all that late when she’d staggered into the room, gotten de-make-upped, wrapped her head in the silk thingie--as per the instructions left on her pillow--and crashed. Even _more_ fortunately, the very first thing that happened once everybody came trooping into the suite was the lady in charge pointing to one of the interns, who said, "Starbucks' orders?" and Darcy got a venti frap with an extra espresso shot without even having to get dressed. 

A girl could get used to this sort of stuff.

Since Darcy had been a good girl (they didn’t actually say that, but it’s what they meant) and had taken care of her hair during the night, the hair team decided they’d do a comb-out for the morning and reassess before the evening reception, and Darcy got to lay back on the chaise with a sheet mask on her face and actual cucumber slices over her eyes. She’d had no idea that was actually a thing, but who was she to object? Her mani was also declared okay, but the pedi part got going while she chilled with the various vegetables on her face. The hot wax was pretty okay, while the quick massage was to die for. No wonder Pepper didn’t kill Tony with her stilettos if she had all this stuff to de-stress her. 

Outfit selection was waaaaayyyy much better this time, with all the options being actually wearable. Darcy tried on the three top contenders before settling for a strappy, breezy sundress (that somehow had enough of a bodice to contain her boobs without looking frumpy) and a cute, coordinating cardigan. They did her hair up in a high ponytail somehow made her make-up equally light and breezy while still looking polished, and finished everything off by producing a pair of sandals that had a bit of a heel but were otherwise as comfortable as flip-flops.

"Good," the stylist said when Darcy mentioned that. "Because the options for the rest of the events are a lot less low-key."

"Or I could wear my Docs and totally make a statement," Darcy said, and to her surprise, everyone stopped and exchanged some very thoughtful looks. 

"We'll keep that in mind," was all anyone would answer, but they were calling up from the lobby to say the cars were there and Darcy had to go. 

This time, she got to ride with Steve, which could have been a disaster, but it turned out the museum they were going to was only a couple of blocks away, so Darcy's brain did not have time to completely break down at the sight of him in khakis and a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up and the top two buttons open at the collar. ( _Forearms_ , her damn brain was shrieking. _Forearms, forearms, forearms_ , right before it started moaning things about his throat and the hollow at the base of it and then nearly died at the glimpse of his collarbone. Fortunately, they were turning off the street and into the underground parking garage before her mouth got in on the disaster-in-the-making.)

"Everything okay?" Steve was saying, and Darcy realized he'd probably been making polite conversation the entire trip, including questions that she only vaguely remembered answering. Since he wasn't beet red or looking offended, she thought she probably done okay. Still, she needed to get her act together and pay attention to reality rather than the ridiculous distractions her brain liked to throw at her.

"I'm just still working my way through my caffeine rush." Darcy waggled her nifty, reusable cup from Starbucks at him and let it play out like this was still her first one. Captain Clean-Living-And-Not-Affected-By-Caffeine didn't need to know it was kinda her third. (She'd swapped out her mostly empty second for somebody's mostly full cup, but that was between her and the lovely people Pepper employed.)

"I'm sorry this all had to start so early--"

"Stee-eeve," Darcy sing-songed. "Hush, now. I'm usually in the desert half the night and please believe me when I tell you nobody is giving me hot wax pedicures or bringing me my actual, specific Starbucks order when I'm there." She bumped her shoulder into his, and was happy that it came off as a friendly, companionable gesture despite all the lingering pandemonium in her brain. "I'm fine. Tell me about this brunch thing-y we're about to do."

"It's, well, kind of the same thing as last night, except I think we sit down to eat and there's probably not any dancing."

"Eh," Darcy said, waggling her hands in a balancing motion. "Food, but no dancing. You win some; you lose some."

The SUV had pulled up in front of what looked like the freight elevator, which was apparently SOP for moving Captain America in and out of events. Steve looked like he was going to start apologizing again, so Darcy grabbed his arm and dragged him after the handlers from the event team. He kept his mouth shut in the elevator--which she knew he would, because he wouldn't insult the event to the people in charge of making it happen--and then, when they got upstairs and into the museum proper, Darcy's plan to sidetrack him got sidetracked itself, in the form of Sam Wilson, in his own variation on a button-down and khakis, accompanied by that fantastic smile of his and a welcoming dose of a relaxed attitude.

"Nobody told me you were going to be here," Darcy said, somehow keeping her voice in a non-shrieking register even though there probably wasn't anyone else she'd rather see at one of these events.

"Imagine my surprise seeing you, too, after the big dope over there only mumbled something about how he was probably going to be dragging someone along."

"Hey," Steve protested. "That was before Pepper convinced me Darcy wouldn't hate me forever if I asked her to this thing."

"Yeah, nice try, big guy," Sam answered. "That still doesn't explain why I'm a surprise, too."

"I was, uh--"

"The piranhas were all over him last night," Darcy said, taking pity on him. He was, after all, about to start the second round of soul-sucking gladhanding in less than twelve hours, and from everything she'd heard while they'd been doing her hair and make-up, the next round, in less than eight hours, was going to be the cherry on the top of this whole nasty piece of work. "We barely had time to say 'hi' before they were trying to get their claws in him."

"I thought piranhas were all about the teeth," Sam answered.

"Metaphors were made to be mixed," Darcy said airily as the event staff started herding all of them toward the rotunda and then out the giant doors to the terrace at the top of the steps leading down onto the Mall for the photocall. The weather had broken overnight--Darcy thought she kinda remembered waking up to some rumbling thunder--and was now cool enough that Darcy was happy to have the cardigan, sunny and breezy, and no humidity to destroy the work of her lovely, lovely hair stylists. 

Steve and Sam stepped up to do their round of torture at the hands of the photographers. The handlers waved Darcy over, but only for a couple of minutes, and they were all headed back inside before Steve even got the squinty look that Darcy knew came from how his serum-enhanced eyes and brain dealt with (or not, as the case might be) the flashes from the cameras. The tables were set up all up and down the gallery that led into the room where the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write _The Star-Spangled Banner_ was on display in its climate- and light-controlled case. 

The museum had some staff standing around who took them in to see the flag and answer any questions--Darcy was totally not paying attention, but it was Steve she was with, so it probably wasn't a volunteer or a low-level docent who was doing the talking, so she kept her mouth shut and ooh-ed and ahhh-ed at appropriate moments.

Steve asked a couple of questions about the restoration process and Sam had some follow-ups, so they at least didn't look like complete idiots, and then they were back out into the reception gallery and getting set up to greet people. There wasn't an actual receiving line, but Steve got that stubborn look in his eyes at the event staff, and said words about how people had raised a lot of money and traveled a long way to be here and he wasn't not going to meet every single one of them. Darcy smiled her nicest smile at the poor lady who was trying to reconfigure the whole set up on the fly, but for real, nothing Steve had said could have remotely been a surprise, so, oh well?

"Why don't we just let everyone in," Steve said, when it got apparent that there was no real way to move all the tables for a receiving line and still give the waitstaff room to do their thing, "and we'll circulate and meet everyone that way?"

"Which means Darcy isn't going to eat," Sam pointed out. 

"Well, neither will either of you," Darcy countered. 

"Not my first rodeo," Sam said. "I made a strategic Egg McMuffin stop on the way over."

"As long as there's caffeine, I'm good to go," Darcy said. "Don't," she added as Steve turned to her, guilt written all over his face. "This is where I confess that I am not a morning person--shocker, I know--and I can, and do, exist on coffee until about three."

Both Steve and Sam frowned at her over that, but Darcy _was_ an adult and had been taking care of herself for a really long time, so she leveled her best _Chill_ glare at them until they did. (Well, until Sam did, and then Steve kinda had to get with the program. Same diff.)

"Look, we can ask the waitstaff to hold our food until we're done meeting and greeting, and then we can scarf it all down in the car on the way to whatever's next, okay?"

Steve was still frowning, and then pointed out that everything would be cold and that wasn't actually something he wanted to put on the people who were doing this at his request.

Darcy arched an eyebrow at Sam. "It's like he never heard of cold pizza for breakfast, right?" Sam grinned back at her, but Steve was kind of red and embarrassed, so Darcy dropped the other part, about how warm beer generally finished off that kind of a breakfast in favor of waggling her Starbucks cup. "I'll repeat the part about coffee being the essential component of my morning hours, and I'm sure the nice event staff can keep me topped off while we say hi."

Steve opened his mouth to argue again--Darcy could absolutely tell even before he got any words out--and she kind of lost the tiny bit of tact she did possess. (In her defence, it _was_ morning and she _didn't_ function well before noon, even before she got to the part where she'd been working with a physicist who studied the stars for the last few years.) "Shut it, Rogers," she snapped. "If you're walking around and not eating, Sam and I are right behind you."

Sam looked--and sounded--like he was choking back a laughing fit, but Darcy didn't have time to deal with him. She kept her glare right on Steve and hoped it got across how very serious she was. It wasn't his fault that people pressed every opportunity with him, but it _was_ in his control to accept help when it was freely offered and she was getting damn tired of having to have the same conversation over and over again.

He must have gotten at least some of that from her non-verbal communications, because he sighed and muttered, "Fine," which was good, because the event planners were starting to look kinda desperate about the schedule and Darcy had no intention of letting him off the hook until he agreed.

"Good choice, man," Sam said, clapping him on the back and then giving Darcy a quick, side-armed hug. The event team opened the doors and Darcy could hear people coming closer. "Okay, then, let's get it going."

* - * - *

"Hoooly crap," Darcy groaned as she leaned against Steve and waited for the car that the event staff swore was on the way to come pick them up. "That was… a _lot_."

She was pretty sure she only sat down once or twice, and that was to chat with people who used wheelchairs, but she knew Steve never-ever took a break and she was pretty sure Sam hadn't either. The physical stuff was one thing, though, but the emotional energy was really and seriously something else. On a whole other plane. 

"You were great," Steve told her. "You didn't have to--" He held up his hands in surrender when she glared at him. "No, I mean it, you didn't have to do all of that, but it was great."

"You say that like you've never seen me make conversation with strangers before," Darcy said, smirking as Steve laughed because yeah, no, she was all about the chatting and he'd been around enough to know that. "It was fun--I mean, I'm super-seriously glad I wasn't wearing heels, but otherwise, no problem, Cap." She threw him a quick two-fingered salute. "They were nice," she added. 

"I don't know about that," Steve said with another quick huff of a laugh.

"Well, they were nice to _me_." Darcy grinned up at him, because all the guests were veterans, some of them older, from World War II, and some of them young and just coming back from Afghanistan. A lot of them had used wheelchairs or prosthetics, but all of them had been beyond happy to meet Steve, and, in the ways of the military, translated that into hassling him non-stop. "And, you know, I saw you giving it right back to them, so I'm not buying the Poor Little Stevie act here, like at _all_."

"They liked you," Steve said. "They wouldn't have been giving me such a hard time about dragging you to a fancy brunch if they hadn't."

"I liked them," Darcy answered. "They were sweet." Some of the younger ones had seen the selfie-taking picture on their various feeds and recognized her as Steve's other half from the night before. Then there was a whole explanation thing with the older ones, and finally, Darcy had shown off the actual picture. There was a lot of good-natured ribbing about the dancing part of the night before, but Steve had stuck to his guns about how the modern-day was just (as he put it) screwy about not dancing so much, and the older vets had loudly agreed. It turned what probably would have been a quiet, sedate (a.k.a, _boring_ ) reception into something loud and energetic and fun.

They--Steve, Darcy, and Sam--had made their way from table to table, and seriously, Darcy was going to be choked up about how excited people were to meet Steve for a long time. She got it more now, Steve's determination to do everything he could to help out. She almost couldn't find it in her heart to fuss at him for doing this whole weekend now (except for how she had to because this shit was terrible and exhausting and incredibly not good for anyone, not the way he'd been doing it. She was seriously going to have to figure out how he could do the fundraising without the emotional blackmail. She was pretty sure she had an ally for that with Pepper, so maybe it would actually happen.)

The SUV pulled up then, and Darcy somehow managed to scramble up into it even as tired as she was. Steve followed her in, saying hello to the driver before the privacy shield came down and it was the two of them alone again. Darcy's brain had (thankfully) calmed down about how good Steve looked; now, she was all about how drained he suddenly looked.

"You didn't eat anything, did you?" her mouth blurted out before her brain could finesse it into something that didn't sound like a mom scolding a recalcitrant kid. 

"I--"

"Yeah, I didn't think so," Darcy sighed. The event staff had put their food aside and Darcy had grabbed a couple of the croissants and some of the fruit as things were winding down, but Steve had stayed out on the floor until the last of the guests had left and then had done a round of pictures with the servers and the rest of the staff. "Promise me you'll get something when we get back to the hotel? Or do I need to come up with you to be sure?"

Now she really did sound like a nagging mom, so she didn't blame him for changing the subject. 

"So, uh, you looked like you were having fun with Sam?"

"Oh, yeah." Darcy nodded with a little more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary, but at least he wasn't telling her to, as her Bubbe used to say, mind her own beeswax. "There is nothing not fun about hanging out with the Falcon."

"He's, uh, a great guy." Steve nodded seriously, but kept looking out of the window, like he expected a fight about Sam.

"The best." 

It served Darcy and her nagging right that the conversation had gotten derailed to the point where they were staring at anywhere but each other while saying nice things about Sam Wilson, but here they were. And of course, the car was doing nothing but inching along--fuck DC traffic, seriously--so they could probably walk faster than it was moving. 

"So, tonight--" Darcy started to say, right as Steve said, "You know you don't--" and they were back to staring at each other.

"No, you go, sorry," Steve said. He was drumming his fingers along where he had his arm stretched out on the back of the seat cushion, but he had got his attention back on Darcy, so maybe whatever had distracted him had settled down.

Darcy shrugged. "I was just going to say that at least tonight there's not a full press line… Or, I mean, I don't think there's one on my schedule...?"

Darcy was not an idiot--she'd read the schedule at least ten times on the plane--but she hadn't actually understood how draining it was to stand in front of a bunch of photographers for even five minutes. The reception on the schedule for the evening was a private thing, for the museum staff that had worked on the exhibit, which Darcy was now realizing meant that it would be kind of quiet.

"Yeah," Steve nodded. "They'll have a couple of photographers there--" _Because, god fucking forbid people not get themselves a picture with Cap_ , Darcy thought with a surprisingly savage sense of protectiveness--"but no press line. Pepper insisted."

"That's--good," Darcy said, slowly, because it was occurring to her that it was going to be a fucking awful night. She'd known that all along, but now, sitting next to him in the middle of a traffic jam, with no place to hide and no distractions, it was hitting her like a ton of bricks. Steve hadn't seen the _Valkyrie_ since he'd essentially killed himself in it; the least they could probably do was not make him smile for the cameras as he got his first look at the restoration.

"Tomorrow, though," he said. "When the whole thing opens officially. That'll be a different story."

"Yeah, it's a whole other level of dresses and stuff for that." 

"Black tie," Steve said. "Not something I thought I'd be doing, but…"

"It'll be fine," Darcy said, and she'd quite possibly grown up sometime during the day, because her brain wasn't freaking out over the thought of Steve in a tux. Mostly, it was trying to figure out how to help him get through it all. "Don't tell anybody, but I might wear my Docs under the gown, no matter what the stylists say."

Steve smiled at her, a real one if it was a small one. "That'd be very you."

Darcy hoped he meant that in a good way, but the traffic had opened up and they were making the final turn at the end of the block from the hotel so there was no time to figure it out. Steve walked her up to her room again, and this time, he was the one who pressed a kiss to Darcy's cheek.

"Thank you," he said very seriously. "You made a lot of people happy today."

He was gone before Darcy could get her brain together enough to say anything.

The schedule from the stylists suggested that Darcy nap for an hour and then shower so the whole circus could start again with getting her ready for the reception that evening. The whole thing was taking place in an annex of the Air and Space Museum that was out in one of the suburbs, and since it was a Friday and rush hour apparently started at lunch--and, Darcy could read between the lines, Steve was a big no-go on using a police escort to dodge traffic--they were going to have to be on the road no later than three.

Darcy understood all of that, but her brain apparently decided it would be better to text Jane a synopsis of the last 24 hours. It took a while--Darcy was reduced to sending multiple follow-ups, but then Jane rebelled against the whole text-speak--she was, as they had often discussed, a traitor to the Millennial generation and hated texting--and called. 

Given the surge of relief Darcy felt at seeing her picture pop up on her phone, Darcy suspected she'd actually wanted this/known it would happen.

"This is hard," Darcy said as soon as she accepted the call. 

"You knew it was going to be," Jane answered.

"Yeah, but…" Darcy flopped back onto the bed with an oomph. "It isn't only about it not being my scene."

"You're there to be a friend," Jane reminded her. 

"And I'm on board with that one thousand percent," Darcy said. "It's not even the--" she waved her hand vaguely in the air no matter that they were audio-only and Jane couldn't see-- " _feelings_ part." She chewed on her bottom lip thoughtfully. "Everybody--and I do mean every single person in this freaking exotic orbit we're in--they all want a piece of him. I mean, except Pepper and Tony and Sam."

"And you."

"I wish," Darcy confessed. "I mean, yeah, you know I was working that crush, but now it's worse, because he's--"

She couldn't even put it into words.

Jane let the silence draw out, but finally said, "The pictures you've texted look very much like two people who are having fun together."

"Well, I mean, we are. I think?" Darcy sighed. "It's just--"

Jane kept quiet and let Darcy try to work out things.

"It's that, yeah, the crush and all, but now I seriously want to smack people back away from him." Darcy chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip. "And he is _so bad_ at taking care of himself. I'm contemplating cleaning out the mini-bar so I'll have food to shove at him when he doesn't eat."

"I think that sounds very supportive," Jane said.

"Well, I mean I still want to climb him like a tree, so."

"I hardly think you're the only one."

"Yeah," Darcy sighed. "He totally has his pick, so I'm going to put myself over here in the Friends, Friends, Totally Friends column and try really, really hard not to embarrass myself."

"Darcy--" Jane was working that I-need-to-tell-you-something-for-your-own-good voice, and Darcy absolutely was not going to be able to deal. 

"Hey, no, seriously, I'm fine. It's all good--thanks for listening, byeeeee." Darcy was absolutely fine to own up to running like the wind from whatever Jane felt like she needed to hear; the weird part was that she wasn't sure whether she was expecting Jane to give her the it's-only-a-crush lecture again or the be-the-supportive-friend lecture. Both of them felt like they could shred Darcy's last damn nerve.

With a groan, Darcy flopped back on the bed and pulled a pillow over her head. She had known she was screwing herself over right from the start and just because it was in so many ways that she hadn't imagined didn't actually change anything, so fuck it all. She'd take the recommended nap and then put on her big girl panties and be as supportive as possible for this next episode in the horrorshow of a weekend.


	6. The Valkyrie

The trip out to the museum that held the stupid damn plane was about as bad as Darcy had expected. The only thing that kept it from being a complete disaster was that Tony and Pepper were riding with them. That gave Darcy someone to talk to--and wasn't it a total head-spin that talking to Pepper Potts wasn't such a big deal any more--and gave Steve someone to argue with, because Darcy absolutely could tell that Tony was needling Steve to keep him from shutting down.

Also, she was suuuuper glad she'd talked to the stylist team and gotten the nerve up to tell them that she didn't want what she was wearing to clash with the purpose of this whole exercise in Inappropriate Uses of Captain America's Goodwill. They'd dug around in the racks and hanging bags and came up with a (still nicer than anything Darcy owned) relatively restrained shift dress in a dark blue wool crepe that didn't wash her out. It had gorgeous embroidery in the exact same tone along the hem and neckline and sleeves, and was one of the nicest things Darcy had ever worn, but it was still very subdued.

"It's cut on the conservative side," they'd said, but that was okay, too. She really didn't need to be showing off any cleavage or excess skin while Steve was going to go deal with the whole reclaimed-coffin thing. It had a square-cut neckline that made her neck and collarbones look elegant, especially with the simple up-do they did with her hair and the freshwater pearls they added as a necklace. 

Pepper was pretty low-key, too, so Darcy felt like she'd made the right call, which was at least one minor thing not to be worrying about as they sat in the SUV and crept west out of the city.

Finally, though, they got to the giant buildings that housed all the really big aircraft and space stuff for the museum and got greeted and introduced and dealt with all the social niceties. Steve was way deep in his public Captain America persona--well, more the public Steve Rogers As Captain America deal, a subtle difference from actual Cap--but what totally surprised Darcy was that she could see where Tony and Pepper were in public personas, too. That left Darcy as the only one who was just herself, but she was being pretty quiet even if she did say so herself, so maybe she was doing the public mask thing, too.

"The lead curator on the project would be happy to answer any questions you might have," the director was telling Steve as they walked along the polished concrete floors, historically important planes and rockets surrounding them on all sides. Given how his eyes were flicking back and forth as they got to the World War II section, Darcy had a feeling that Steve knew about more than one of them, but now really wasn't the time to ask. "Or if you'd rather have a bit of privacy, we would completely understand."

Darcy was a little shocked at the actual tact being shown, but Steve--of-fucking-course--insisted that he'd be honored to have the team give him the tour, and so off they went to see the goddamned plane that had been a literal flying nightmare even before Steve had put it into the ice.

Pepper was smiling at the museum team, but Darcy didn't think she was imagining the grim look in her eyes as the four of them squared up to go into the exhibit. Tony was doing his best not to add any more stress to the atmosphere; Darcy thought at least three times that he might strain something from keeping his mouth shut, but he was watching Pepper with an eagle eye that almost masked the regular looks he was shooting at Steve. They were both letting Steve take the lead, though, so Darcy bit back her objections and walked along with them like she belonged there.

Almost every other plane in the giant hangar was just sitting out in the open (or hanging from the ceiling), but the _Valkyrie_ \--of course--had its own section, so they could really be enclosed by the horror, Darcy thought. 

The first room they walked into was there to basically set the scene. Darcy listened with half of her brain to the explanation that the team felt it was important to describe the historical setting because so much of what Schmidt and Hydra had done had remained classified for so many decades that they couldn't be sure visitors would have the proper background to really understand the situation. Darcy thought this was actually a good idea, but…

Mostly, she was just hanging onto Steve's hand and trying to radiate support. She hadn't quite worked out how she--a twenty-something intern still trying to get her own life together--was supposed to be able to help out Captain America, but at the very least, she was there and didn't need anything from him. He was doing pretty well, she thought. He walked the whole perimeter of the room and had questions and comments that sounded thoughtful and curious, at least to Darcy's ears. 

If he hadn't been holding onto her hand as tightly as she was to his, she would have thought he was fine. 

When they came around the final corner, though, and were face-to-nose-cone with the cursed, damned plane, Steve stopped dead--only for a second, but still. This was the guy who Darcy had watched (via a hundred bad cell phone videos) jumping into entire groups of the creepy aliens who'd invaded Manhattan, and Darcy couldn't find any fault with his reaction. The plane itself just _looked_ evil even with Darcy not having any personal history with it.

It was only for a second, though, and then Steve was walking up to it, circling the wings and the propellers and giving every indication that he was totally engrossed in whatever the curators were saying.

Darcy, though, couldn't feel her hand for how hard Steve's was wrapped around it.

That was _fine_ , though, Darcy told herself fiercely. FINE. It was exactly why she'd agreed to come and the fact that the whole thing was nauseating her didn't mean a damn thing. She kept her breathing steady and walked with Steve while he smiled and nodded, even when they walked up into the fucking flying nightmare. 

"We were able to view some of your debriefings," the lead curator was saying as they picked their way along the walkway of what Darcy realized was the fucking bomb bay. "They were heavily redacted, of course, but we used what we could to reconstruct the interiors."

"Well," Steve said in an almost normal tone of voice (the _almost_ part was killing Darcy on his behalf), "I was only in here for a couple of minutes and most of that was in the middle of a fight, but from what I remember, you've done a really great job with the restoration."

Darcy had to remind herself again to breathe slow and steady, because her freaking out about all this was not going to help Steve at all. The thing was, she _knew_ the serum hand given him what was basically an eidetic memory, so even if it had been seventy years ago and he'd only been in this horror show for a couple of minutes, she was pretty sure he remembered every detail. _And_ , if _she_ was remembering her _Splinter Groups in Mid-Twentieth Century Fascism_ seminar correctly, the 'fight' Steve was so off-handedly referencing was with Schmidt himself, in full Red Skull mode, and to the death. 

_Breathe_ , Darcy told herself. _In, out, nice and steady._ Steve was rock-solid next to her and swear-to-God, Darcy had no idea how he was doing it, but he was. Just standing there, making conversation with the museum staff, listening to them tell him how they'd rebuilt the metal hull of the plane and sourced period-appropriate paints and all. 

She couldn't quite choke back the horrified noise when they asked Steve if he'd like to go up into the cockpit, and he turned around and looked at her with concern in his eyes. Nobody else was looking at her, though, so she must not have been very loud. 

"Everything okay?" Steve asked, very _sotto voce_.

"Are you sure you want to go up there?" Darcy whispered fiercely. Steve gave her one of his self-deprecating smiles and a half-shrug, and then looked over her head to where Pepper and Tony were coming up behind them and basically just handed Darcy over to Pepper, so fast and smooth that he was gone before her brain actually registered what had happened.

"That is the stupidest--" Darcy hissed at Pepper as Steve's broad shoulders in his perfectly cut navy suit jacket squeezed into the tiny cockpit. "I can't believe he actually--"

"It is," Pepper murmured after a beat, when it became clear Darcy wasn't going to be able to finish (because she was so utterly _done_ with Rogers and his self-sacrificial bullshit). "And he did." Even in the dim light of the installation, her eyes were kind and troubled and exasperated. Darcy could relate.

Darcy took a deep breath and told herself to even out, that she wasn't overreacting to think this whole tour was a _horrible_ idea--and if she was, she was at least in the best of company with Pepper. It was happening though--and Darcy sort of understood why, even if she disagreed with Steve's capacity to self-sacrifice in the face of people who were excited to meet him--and this wasn't the time to discuss it.

 _But_ , Darcy promised herself, _it *will* be discussed._

*

The reception was done by ten, and Tony'd had someone deliver one of his bougie convertibles to the museum so he and Pepper could go have a late dinner on their own. Darcy absolutely did not blame them--God help her, but Tony looked adorably excited to get Pepper to himself and was zooming off as soon as she'd gotten her seatbelt fastened--but it did mean she and Steve were on their own in the SUV on the way back. 

Luckily, it wasn't your basic truck, but one of the tricked-out ones that rich people got driven around in so they had their choice of music (Darcy had a playlist curated before they even got onto the highway) and drinks and snacks. Steve had his head laid back on the headrest and Darcy got her damned heels off pretty quick, too. 

It could have been a little less stressed, but it wasn't nearly as bad as Darcy had imagined. She texted with Jane some, mostly just to tell her they'd survived yet another event; and then Pepper sent her a shot of her very cold-looking, very large Cosmo. Darcy snorted and texted back, _remember, it only looks like a useless girly drink--it's basically straight vodka, pace yourself!!1!_. Then she had to sit and breathe a little--or maybe a lot, because it was enough for Steve to notice.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

"Other than I'm somehow in an alternate dimension where I'm texting drinking advice to Pepper-freaking-Potts, everything's peachy," Darcy answered. "Like, who saw _this_ coming when I signed on as Jane's go-fer?"

"I'm glad she and Tony were able to go take some time to themselves," Steve said, laying his head back and closing his eyes. "She works a lot."

"Yeah, she never does seem to just sit down and take a break." 

It got quiet in the car again, like it had been in the morning. Most of the time, Darcy would be all about finding something light and breezy to break the silence (her mouth was, of course, what she was mostly known for), but she guessed the realities of the day were a little too much for inconsequential chat, especially since she'd been right there for it all. There had probably been times when she and Steve had met up and she'd been happy to be the distraction, but now she was in it all and it felt way too much like denial.

"You're pretty quiet," Steve said. Darcy shrugged.

"That was a lot," she said. "I'm not really sure what to say." Darcy felt like it was important to note that she _was_ actually thinking before she spoke, and knew that talking about things was probably going to yank her out of the 'Fun To Hang Out With' category, but that didn't really seem to be all that important tonight. "And before you start, it's not on you to make sure I'm having fun while you're going off and letting people drag you on tours of things that really, seriously cannot have good associations for you."

Steve was quiet for a few moments, but then finally said, "It was an incredible job they did. The restoration. They were proud of it, and I …"

"Yeah," Darcy said. "It was an amazingly well-done project about an important part of history that's gotten glossed over a lot. I'm not saying that they were wrong. I'm not even saying you were wrong to let them walk you through it all. I'm just… I don't know…" Darcy did her best to sort through all the crap flying around her brain. "I guess I'm just saying that you don't have to make yourself be Mr. Nice Guy after you went and sat down where you died so you could tell people how close they got to reality."

The last part came out a little more sharply than she'd intended, but it really had been a long day.

"Well," Steve cracked, "not so much _died_."

"You know what I'm talking about, Rogers," Darcy snapped.

"Yeah," Steve sighed, and Darcy firmly resisted the urge to just let things slide. She knew she was here because she was an nonthreatening good time, but even without the stupid crush, she _cared_ about him and maybe it was time to let that be known.

"It was a _lot_ for me to watch you go do that," she said. "If it was a lot for you to actually do it, you don't have to pretend it wasn't. That's all."

Steve rolled his head so he could look at her properly; Darcy was actually counting it as a win that he didn't automatically sit up and tell her how he was fine, so she smiled at him and held out her hand.

Given how bad he was at accepting help, it really felt like a big deal when Steve took it and let Darcy sit with him quietly for the rest of the drive. 

(Also, her playlist was absolutely _kicking_ it with the low-key emotional vibe even if she was pretty sure Steve had never heard of any of her indie singer-songwriters. Subliminal support was a totally valid option and she didn't think she was being full of herself to own it as a win.)

Darcy sat back and breathed and let the lights wash over her and let herself think that maybe she'd done what she'd set out to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two quick things:  
> 
> 
> * I'm sorry this keeps getting longer, but I do know how it ends and I'm almost done with the edits on the emotional arc  
> 
> * Thank you so much for reading and kudoing and commenting. I swear this fic is keeping me sane during all the sh*tty things happening as 2020 refuses to let go its chokehold on the world. ♥ to you all.


	7. The Late-Night Dinner

Traffic wasn't horrendous so it wasn't super-late when the car pulled up in front of the hotel. It'd been raining, though and even with the doorman rushing out with a giant umbrella, Darcy was less than excited about putting her shoes back on to make a run for the lobby. She could just go shoeless, but even if she wasn't paying for the clothes, she was having a hard time rationalizing destroying a pair of stockings that cost as much as the ones she was wearing. (Seriously. She'd fed herself for a month on less than what was currently making her legs look fabulous.)

"Here," Steve said from where he was standing outside of the door. He held out an arm. "I'll get you inside, okay?"

"My knight in shining armor," Darcy said, getting one arm around his neck and letting him sweep her up in a bridal carry. She actually managed to find a light, teasing tone, enough that she didn't embarrass herself by admitting how very much she'd like him to be exactly that. 

"Or your pack horse," Steve said with a grin as the doorman held the door and let them into the building without Steve breaking stride. 

"I said nothing of the sort," Darcy insisted. The lobby was mostly deserted, thank all applicable deities; she definitely wasn't up for ending up on some random tumblr as the girl Cap had to carry. The last thing she needed was speculation about how drunk she might or might not have been. Steve finally put her down in front of the elevators, where the floor was dry and there was a nice rug she could stand on and not freeze her toes on air-conditioned marble.

"So, uh," Steve said as Darcy reached for the button to call the elevator. "You, uh, were right about doing that tour…" He took a deep breath. "It was hard."

"I'm sorry," Darcy said. "I wish I'd been wrong." She laid her hand on Steve's forearm and squeezed lightly. "But I'm glad you're not pretending."

"Yeah," Steve sighed, "you're not the first person who's pointed out how that doesn't actually help."

"Sam?" Darcy asked.

"Oh, yeah," Steve answered with a smile. "Repeatedly, 'cause he said he could tell I wasn't the kind of guy who was going to fold on the first conversation."

"No, really?" Darcy deadpanned. "Who would have thought?"

"Yeah, yeah," Steve said in a not quite grumble. The elevator arrived and they got on, but when Darcy reached to press the button for their floor, Steve caught her hand and said, "So, this conversation in particular--it's gonna take me awhile to cycle down from all of this and I need to eat, too--"

"Oh, my _god_ ," Darcy said. "Are you telling me you're actually going to do a little self-care? Without anyone fussing at you?"

Steve shrugged self-consciously and Darcy managed shut her stupid mouth before she negated all the good stuff that he was doing. "Sorry," she sighed. "Sometimes my mouth engages before my brain can weigh in. I'm glad you're taking care of yourself."

"Well," Steve said, "it kinda got started after last night, when you were shoving food at me and, y'know, it wasn't such a disaster at the end, so…

"Okay," Darcy said. "I will graciously accept my Nobel prize for Best Casual Food Sharing and we'll move along."

"Right," Steve pressed the button for the rooftop bar and then let his hand hover over the button for their floor. "This is the only place that still has food other than room service and I was…" He sighed. "I was wondering if you wanted to come up with me."

"Yes, _absolutely_." Darcy's mouth did run away with things before her brain caught up but that wasn't always a bad thing.

"You don't have to stay--"

"I promise to leave as soon as I am the slightest bit bored," Darcy swore. She didn't even have to cross her fingers behind her back because there was no way that was ever going to happen, but there was no need to draw attention to her hopelessness where Steve was concerned.

The lounge on the roof was one of those places that was advertised to death, but as Steve walked her off the elevator and out onto the covered patio, Darcy decided it actually lived up to the hype. The south side of the outdoor room looked straight along 15th Street to the Washington Monument, while the long western edge looked down into the White House grounds and the edge of the building itself. 

Darcy found herself in the corner looking south to where the tall obelisk of the Washington Monument was lit up for the night with the flags snapping in the breeze. Steve was putting an order in with the bartender, not only for the biggest steak they had, but also for a cocktail for her, 'fancy enough to text a picture of it.'

Darcy kept her face turned away toward the view, the better to hide how that choked her up. He was _such_ a nice guy, through and through; she did not need to fuck up their relationship by throwing herself at him. _Breathe_ , she told herself fiercely. _Get it together, dummy._ She pinched the inside of her upper arm and managed somehow to shove all the swirling emotions down so that she could be chipper and happy when Steve called her over to the bar.

"Burnt lemon sangria," the bartender told her as he slid the glass across the bar to her, the light, fruity aroma of the sangria complementing the heavier, sweeter smell from the slice of lemon that was, indeed, burned and caramelized.

"Oh, that is _fabulous_ ," Darcy said, not even having to fake any of her enthusiasm in the face of the _very_ chic glass in front of her. "This is absolutely going out to Pepper. Cosmos are classic, but this is amazing."

Steve offered to take a picture of her with the drink, so after she got the stylized close-up of it on the bar, and another shot with the super-nice (and super-hot, even with Steve standing right there next to him) bartender, she handed over her phone and they got a cheesy _Cheers_ shot. It was totally going in her personal Hall of Fame; she didn't care how cliche it all was.

The bartender pointed them to where there were a couple of empty couches arranged around a table and told Steve they'd bring his food straight over to him, as soon as the kitchen sent it up. Plus, he got them some nuts and popcorn and a couple of waters and was very firmly Darcy's MVP of the night.

"That's some view," Steve said once they got settled. He had the straight-on sight line to the Washington Monument; Darcy had to turn her head to see it, but she had zero problems with the corner of the couch that put her right next to Steve's chair. "It didn't look as nice when I was here." He drank half his water in a single swallow and added, "During the war."

This was kind of an unprecedented conversation; Steve almost never talked about stuff from before he'd woken up in the SHIELD facility. The closest they'd ever gotten had been an oblique touch-point when they'd first talked about the _Valkyrie_ being restored. Darcy decided it went along with all of the rest of the night, so she took a (surreptitious) deep breath and followed his lead.

"I think I remember from one of my history profs that they built a lot of cheap, emergency office space, like barracks…?"

"Yeah," Steve laughed. "They called them 'tempos.' All along both sides of the Reflecting Pool and halfway up to the Washington Monument. They were… just ugly. And I'm saying that as someone who grew up in Brooklyn tenements. Plus, they had these even uglier bridges they built across the pool, so you could get back and forth without having to go all the way to one end or the other."

"That sounds… not great." Darcy thought about the greenspace around all the monuments--it was seriously the part she liked best about the city. "But, y'know, necessary, I guess."

"Yeah, they ran the war from them, until they got the Pentagon built." Steve got quiet again, and then shook his head. "It still doesn't seem all that long ago."

"Well," Darcy said, as gently as she could, "it _wasn't_. Right?"

"I guess not," Steve sighed. The bartender came over with silverware--including a lethally sharp, huge steak knife--and napkins and all the stuff that went with a dinner, bread and butter and salt and pepper, house-made steak sauce and some super-hot mustard. He made a quick second trip and left a pitcher of ice water and some lemon wedges, which Darcy eyed pointedly enough that Steve took the hint and drained another glass of water. Darcy took the opportunity to send the cocktail shot to Pepper.

"I'm sure they've moved on to some thousand dollar bottle of champagne by now, but never let it be said that Darcy Lewis does not give it her all."

"Never let it be said," Steve agreed in a deceptively mild voice. Darcy eyed him sharply and could see the shit-eating grin dancing around his eyes, but he kept the rest of him easy and relaxed and she decided she'd let it slide, just this once. After all, she had her fancy cocktail and a place to sit with an excellent view--and she wasn't only talking about Captain America over there. The lounge was mostly deserted and the bartender clearly knew who they were -- or at least, knew who Steve was--and was taking care of them, so Darcy left her shoes on the floor and curled her legs up under her. The dress had enough give in the fabric to let her be comfortable and even if her hair was full of product, it wasn't pinned up so tightly that she was counting time until her head would want to explode. 

"You didn't spend a lot of time here, though," Darcy said. "During the war, I mean."

"Nah, I sometimes got to London, but mostly, I was in France and Germany and Italy," Steve said. "I got to Bletchley Park once."

"Oh, super cool," Darcy said, incredibly grateful for all the Twentieth Century history classes she'd ended up taking before she'd switched her major to poli-sci. Who knew the payoff for all the papers she'd written would be as spectacular as being able to hold an informed conversation about the British code-breaking facility with Captain America? "Did you actually get to see anything in progress?"

"Well, it was the middle of the night and pitch dark because of the blackout orders, so it wasn't very dramatic," Steve said dryly.

"No, not the Hollywood stuff," Darcy sighed. "Just--by the time you were in Europe, they'd broken Enigma--had broken it for years. They must have been cranking through the Nazi communications."

"They were," Steve said. "It was when we were tracking Schmidt and they had some things they wanted me to see without risking anyone else getting a look." He leaned back in the chair, as much of a sprawl as he ever allowed himself; Darcy knew a weird sense of pride in that she recognized how fucking gorgeous he looked, all spread out and lounging, but got equally as much satisfaction from how relaxed he suddenly seemed. It wasn’t even the fact that he was that relaxed around _her_ (though that absolutely was a part of it) but that he'd eased off, period. "But, you're right, watching them work through that code and _knowing_ that the German high command had no idea… there was a lot of good energy sparking around, even in the middle of the night."

Darcy's favorite bartender arrived at that point, with two tray-laden servers trailing along behind him, because it turned out Steve had not only ordered the biggest steak they had, but also had gotten every side they offered. 

"Making a decision wasn't happening," he said, looking a little embarrassed at how the plates and platters and stuff took over the whole table. "Are you--?"

"Hungry?" Darcy finished for him, eyeing the offerings, everything from a baked potato the size of her head to a pyramid of onion rings to giant plates of Brussels sprouts and asparagus to one of those salads that was a half a head of lettuce drowning in blue cheese and bacon. She'd seen buffet restaurants with fewer options. Hell, she'd waited tables at a couple of them. "If you'd asked me when we got here, I'd have said no, because of--" she waved her hand -- "everything." She smiled at the bartender and shook off a refill of her fancy cocktail. "But now…" 

Steve shoved his plate over in her direction, a wordless invitation to share _and_ reached for her phone to add to the selfie collection they were building up. If anyone had told Darcy she'd be finishing off the night in a dress that cost more than a semester of school with her (also hideously expensive) shoes off and grazing through some ridiculously over-done steak dinner while Steve fussed about her only taking a bite of the (amazingly tender) steak-- _I'm all about the accoutrements_ , Darcy told him--she would have demanded some of whatever good stuff they had clearly been imbibing. 

But. 

Here she was, and there Steve was, and even after midnight, there wasn't a pumpkin in sight and nobody came and told her it was all a dream.

Even more, when she was back in her room (no kisses this time, but Steve had held her hand the whole way down in the elevator and along the hall, and then had wished her sweet dreams at her door), her phone rang with a call from him before she really even had time to do anything but get out of the dress and yank all of the pins out of her hair.

"Please don't tell me someone is trying to take over the world and you have to go fix things," Darcy said as soon as she accepted the call. "I mean, there's not anything I can actually do about it, but I'll be very aggravated if I don't get a selfie with you in a tuxedo."

There was a second of blank silence (which was fair; most people had no idea what to do with Darcy's mouth in full-tilt smartass mode) but then Steve laughed. "No, so far we're clear."

"Good to know," Darcy said, flopping back on the bed.

"I was just calling to ask if you wanted to go out with me tomorrow morning."

She frowned. "I thought we were clear in the morning--my schedule--" She put her phone on speaker and flicked around to find the email with her detailed daily breakdown.

"Yeah, no, it's not officially-official," Steve said. "I promised to go up to Bethesda in the morning, to kind of do an under-the-radar visit to the VA hospital and the rehab center. Just me, no press, no photographers."

"Oh," Darcy somehow managed to say, completely floored at the implications of the invitation. 

"It can be... intense sometimes," Steve said. "So, I understand if that's not something you're prepared to deal with."

"No!" Darcy said, and then heard how that sounded and all but fell off the bed trying to fix it, because apparently she really couldn't not talk with her hands when she was stressed, even on the phone. "I mean, yes." She bit back a groan at how idiotic she was sounding. "I mean, I'd love to go with you."

"Thanks," Steve said, sounding very serious. Darcy already knew how much energy and effort he put into supporting veterans' causes--it was why this whole weekend was a thing, obvs--but she caught the impression that this was even more personal to him. "We can leave about 8 and I was planning on taking the bike, but if you'd rather--"

"That's fine," Darcy said, her brain an utter disaster area of ping-ponging emotions, excitement and terror at the thought of fucking things up going toe-to-toe with each other. Somehow, she managed to pull herself together enough to say, "I'm good with whatever."

"Okay, then I'll see you in the morning," Steve said. "Sleep well."

"You, too," Darcy said faintly. Then, the call went dead and there she was, staring at the ceiling, her brain spinning out of control and knowing it'd be a miracle if she even slept a wink.

 _This_ , she told herself sternly, _is why God invented under-eye concealer, so do your best and we'll deal with it in the morning._

As pep talks went, it was a fairly pathetic one, but Darcy was used to working with what she had, not what she needed, so she resolutely closed her eyes, started counting sheep and really, really hoped she wouldn’t be doing her best impersonation of a ghost come morning.


	8. The Unofficially Official Morning Visit

Fortunately, Darcy's doom-seeking brain was wrong and she managed to get a decent amount of sleep, enough so that she wasn't a complete zombie when her alarm went off in the morning. She was even coherent enough to get her hair back in a French braid (there was no way any other style was going to survive the helmet she was going to have to be wearing) and deal with a normal, basic amount of make-up. 

Steve called to say she should meet him in the underground parking garage; they were going to leave through the loading dock exit to try to keep a low profile.

"It means we're leaving next to the garbage, sorry," Steve said.

"You do take me to all the best places," Darcy said, pleased with both the deadpan she managed _and_ Steve's huff of laughter in reply.

She got a little lost trying to find the service elevator, but one of the guys who helped with luggage and all got her pointed in the right direction, and then Steve was waiting right there for her, both feet down on the ground but the engine on the bike idling.

"You remember all the safety rules?"

"Sir, yes, sir," Darcy said, saluting. Steve was not impressed, so she rolled her eyes and added, "No, seriously. Pinkie-swear." She took the helmet he handed her and tucked her braid up into it in a (probably doomed, but she had to try) effort to keep it from being blown to pieces. "I'm very motivated when it comes to not being splatted across the pavement."

Steve snorted, but edged forward so she could get herself on the bike behind him and then, once he was sure she was settled, took them up to street level and out of the back of the hotel.

"Do you want to go through the city or along the river?" he asked as they waited for an opening in the criss-cross traffic. "The river way is longer, but probably won't take any more time."

"Either one," Darcy sang, because this? Sitting here with Steve with nobody watching them and no minute-by-minute schedule? This was _awesome_ , and she didn't think it was a bad thing that Steve knew she was liking it. 

"We'll be moving faster if we go up along the river--I don't want to scare you."

"Oh, nice; way to call me a chicken." Darcy pinched his waist lightly. "Which way will you have more fun?"

"Okay, river it is," Steve said, making the turn and heading down to the Washington Monument. They hit the lights so they never had to slow down as they rode along the Mall toward the Lincoln Memorial. Darcy felt the need to pinch herself this time to be sure this was all really happening: the sunny, breezy day, the view of the memorials and monuments flowing by, Steve there in front of her. By the time they crossed the Memorial Bridge and started upriver on the Virginia side, she was doing her best to commit every second to memory.

"Here we go," Steve said, his hand twisting on the accelerator and the bike (which was some crazy custom Stark effort) picking up speed smoothly. Darcy tightened her grip around his waist and ducked her head a little so he was sheltering her from the wind. She looked across the river and recognized the Kennedy Center and the Watergate Hotel, laughing a little in disbelief that she was right there, not looking at things on a computer screen or in a textbook. When Steve made a questioning sort of sound, she told him she'd be happy to explain the convolutions of the actual, original Watergate scandal.

"Who knew I was going to put my actual degree to use on this trip," she said, laughing. 

"Happy to oblige," Steve cracked back, and it was completely unreal to be there. 

It was fabulous, even better than the trip from the airport, but it (of course) had to end. They came back up to an interstate and crossed back over the river, and then finally navigated the last part of the trip down a purely urban street. Steve took them around the edges of a huge medical campus and up to another employee-only parking area that once again led them to a freight elevator. 

This one came complete with a team of who Darcy assumed to be administrative types--they weren't in scrubs and looked like paper-pushers to her finely tuned eyes--who didn't seem to be all that happy to see Steve and Darcy. 

Or maybe it was that Darcy was there with Steve?

Given the dismissive once-over they gave Darcy's jeans and Docs (never mind Steve wearing basically the same thing, and what the fuck did they think she was going to wear on a motorcycle?) Darcy thought that was probably not all that wide of the mark

"I usually check in and see where the nursing staff thinks I'll do best with visits," Steve said super quietly to Darcy as they were led into the elevator and then off on the first floor. Darcy had gotten used to everything being choreographed down to the last second on this trip so it was a little disconcerting to realize they had no idea what to do with her and Steve.

"We'll just go on ourselves," Steve finally said as they stood around while the greeting committee argued amongst themselves as to where they should go first. Darcy's best bet on _that_ was that neither of them trusted the other with the incredible prize of Captain America. "I know my way around," he said with a self-deprecating smile as he stepped back toward the elevators.

"Right behind you, babe," Darcy cracked and _wow_ , but that got some seriously bitchy glares from the Dithering Duo. She was tempted to smack Steve on the ass, just to see how well that might go over, but ultimately didn't, mostly because she knew it would hideously embarrass him. 

"Sorry about that," Steve muttered as they got into the elevator. His hand was low on her back, which she was doing her best to ignore, but it seriously was a chore. 

"Does that happen a lot?" Darcy asked once the elevator doors closed. "I mean, that was kind of a kidnapping in progress."

"Sometimes," he said with another shrug. "People get… weird about it. Me."

Darcy reminded herself--very firmly--that she was a friend, first and foremost, and that being 'weird' about Steve was not in the job description.

"Well, you know," she said, "people are basically weird in general."

"I guess," Steve said, but they were there (wherever 'there' actually was) and the elevator door was opening. He shepherded her out and down the hall to the nurses' station on the middle of the floor.

"Captain Rogers," a Hispanic guy in light blue scrubs called. "We weren't sure if you were going to make it today."

"Wouldn't miss it," Steve said, his voice in that super-reassuring Captain America register. "This is my friend, Darcy, and we're here until noon."

"Come right this way," he answered with a smile, and they were off. "We're gonna start down in the gym; catch the rugby team before they knock off practice for the day."

Darcy had some random idea about wheelchair rugby; like, she knew it was a thing, but she had _no_ idea of exactly how intense it was. 

"Holy shit," she muttered as people in streamlined, reinforced wheelchairs went flying by, too focused and intent on moving the ball around to even notice Steve until they all had to stop because of a crash that left Darcy clapping her hands over her eyes.

"Cap! Cap!" she heard them yelling from the floor. "You gotta come back for a real game; this is nothin' but the warm-ups.'"

"You got it." Steve, predictably enough, was loving all of it. "But show me what you've got now, because you know I can't ever set a schedule."

"Oh my god, oh my god," Darcy whimpered, ducking around to hide behind Steve. There were _collisions_ happening out there on the court, at _speed_ , and she'd be freaking out regardless of the spinal cord status of the participants. 

Steve whistled and yelled and was generally about as relaxed as Darcy had ever seen him; nobody from the hospital seemed disturbed at what was going on, but Darcy kept her eyes half-closed regardless.

She got herself pulled together enough to take the obligatory pictures for everyone, though, everyone crowding around and handing her their phones; and by the time she got to the fourth or fifth try, she started thinking about why these sets of photo ops weren't bugging her as much as all the other ones had this weekend. She finally decided that it was kind of due to Steve himself--he was a lot more relaxed and at ease when he was hanging out with vets. 

Steve was getting texts from the nursing staff--Darcy was super-proud of his Millennial communication skills and managed to give him exactly the right amount of grief to get the rest of the players involved, which was fun-- so as soon as they got themselves out of the gym, he headed back up the stairs and out onto a regular hospital floor. Darcy wasn't exactly sure what she could add to the general baseline awesomeness of a hospital visit from Cap himself, but it was easy to slip into the sidekick role. She could be the straight guy if that was what Steve needed to ease into a conversation or she could absolutely zing off a couple of one-liners when she caught a kindred spirit in the room's patient. 

And of course, she could actually take decent pictures with a phone.

They did two floors of individual room visits and then headed back to the staircase so they could get to a family visiting room where people apparently hung out together. As Steve held the heavy stairway door, Darcy mused, "We should maybe get a Polaroid camera for the next time." 

She stopped for a second and eyed the utilitarian stairway with resignation. She got it, she really did--the elevators were horribly slow--but she was about to start demanding piggyback rides. 

Determinedly, she started up more steps. At least she wasn't wearing heels, she reminded herself. "I mean, that would be fun, to leave everyone with actual, physical pictures they can put on their walls." Steve was already a half-flight ahead of her, but he was still listening. "I'll bet Pepper has somebody who can find us one, no problem."

Steve was patiently holding the door, but she hurried up the last set of steps anyway, which meant she was basically a panting mess as they got through the doors and into the big room, where every single person looked up as she and Steve came through the door. It was like showing up for Hanukkah at her Bubbe's with everyone checking her and her goyim boyfriend out appraisingly, except Darcy kinda thought she was the shiksa in this (very mixed) metaphorical equation.

Darcy found herself hoping the joy of a visit from Captain America would distract everyone from her out-of-breath, sweaty (and probably completely red-faced) self, but of course, the first thing she heard was, "You gonna introduce us to your girl, Cap?" 

The guy who called it out was a little older than what Darcy could see for the rest of the group, his dark eyes full of laughter. 

"This is my friend, Darcy," Steve said, holding out his hand for Darcy to take. He looked around the room, very pointedly. It was a pretty young group with a lot of prostheses and some very high-tech-looking wheelchairs in evidence. Steve was suddenly looking a lot less like Captain America and a lot more like the guy who gave and took shit from Natasha. (Not that it was any kind of a news flash, but Darcy really liked that guy.) "You need to be nice to her."

The whole room laughed, a wave of affection and something that felt like family, but Darcy literally could not shut her mouth down before it said, "Did you just go all Brooklyn tough guy over me?"

Steve gave her one of his half-shrugs and he was maybe blushing a little, but all he said (still with that hint of a Brooklyn accent that was going to give Darcy a heart attack--he wasn't even holding his mouth the same way, seriously) was, "I know this crew."

There was another round of laughter and Darcy, not knowing what to think at all, turned to the guy closest to her, the one who'd started it all, and said, "Okay, let's pretend like he's not going all Neanderthal and, y'know, talk." The guy, who used one of the high tech wheelchairs and who had lost an arm but wasn't wearing a prosthesis, grinned at her. "Hi, I'm Darcy, and you are…"

"Mac," he answered. He offered her his left hand to shake, and his grip, when Darcy took it, was firm and kind. "And I wouldn't get too wound up about Cap--he's probably trying to head off some of the guys who are real Romeos, telling you how he's no good for you, being an officer and all and that they know how to treat a lady." Darcy snorted faintly at the thought, and Mac grinned at her again. "All right, we'll move on--what do you do, Miss Darcy?"

"Oh," Darcy said, realizing it was actually the first time anyone had actually asked about her this weekend. It was too bad she didn't have anything much to answer with. "Oh, I just--I'm an admin. I push papers around, or at least the electronic version of it all."

"Hey," Steve said, somehow right behind her again. "Don't be selling yourself short." He looked at Mac. "She runs the administrative side of an astrophysics research lab."

"I--" Darcy started, feeling her face start to heat up.

"Is that not what you do, Darce?"

"I mean, yeah, but--" 

Steve just stood there looking at her with an expression that said he wasn't going to put up with any sad-sack excuses. Darcy actually knew variations on that kind of expression well (she may have seen it from one (or more) of her teachers in elementary and high school, but that's neither here nor there) except this one wasn't waiting for her to confess how she'd deliberately screwed up a project because of how boring it was. 

She looked back at Mac and said, "There's only, like, one--" Steve coughed. "Okay, sometimes two physicists--"

"And a grad student," Steve added, and Darcy rolled her eyes, because yes, technically Ian had been a part of the team for a little while.

"It's a small lab," she said. "That's what I was trying to say."

"With the kind of research that ends up so heavily redacted there's more blank than not," Steve said. Darcy threw up her hands in surrender. 

"Fine," she muttered to Steve before turning to Mac and adding,"I take care of the non-science parts of a research lab."

Mac laughed. "Once a captain, always a captain." He winked at Darcy. "The good ones don't like their people running themselves down. It can be a little annoying, yeah?"

Darcy snorted and Steve leveled a long look at Mac. "Thank you, Sergeant," he said, his voice dry and long-suffering.

"Always happy to help, Cap." Mac spread his arms, his grin widening. "You should probably go off and meet some people. We got some new kids in starting their rehab; they're tryin' real hard not to bum-rush you."

"I'll do that," Steve said in a very even tone. Darcy actually thought it was good to know at least one person outside of the Avengers didn't hold Steve up on some pedestal. 

"I should probably go with him, but it was great to meet you," Darcy told Mac. "Does Steve have your contact information?" Steve had taken a lot of addresses, email and paper, during this trip; Darcy was pretty sure one of Pepper's assistants managed a newsletter kind of a deal for him. 

"Oh, yeah, we go way back," Mac said. "I'm in and out of here a lot; Cap comes by every time he's in the District." 

"Okay, good," Darcy said. She cocked her head at him consideringly. "Would you mind if I got it from him, so I could keep in touch, too?"

"I would not mind at all," Mac said, smiling. 

"Awesome," Darcy answered. "Between you and me, I'm collecting people who don't get side-tracked by the red-white-and-blue aura."

"Happy to be a part of your effort." Mac gave a little chuckle and offered Darcy his hand again. She squeezed it briefly before she went to see who else Steve was getting a hard time from. (The answer to that was everyone, which made Darcy feel a little better about the rest of the weekend.) They made it around the whole room before Steve pointed to his watch and murmured that it was probably time for them to go.

"I can take a cab or something back to the hotel," Darcy told him. "You can stay longer." It wasn't his fault that she had three hours of hair and makeup and wardrobe on her schedule.

"No, it's good," Steve said. "I'm supposed to sign some stuff before the reception, so I need to get back, too." He made their goodbyes with an ease that Darcy hadn't really ever seen him use in public before, and then held the door for her on the way back to the staircase. "And I promise to eat something, too."

"Will wonders never cease?" Darcy asked with an exaggerated back-of-her-hand to her forehead move. 

"Your faith in my self-preservation abilities is--"

"Hypothesized and supported from observable data," Darcy cracked. She arched an eyebrow at him. "Since I'm the physics lab person and all."

"I'm going to regret that conversation, aren't I?" Steve said as they jogged down the steps.

"Mac and I feel like this morning was the start of a beautiful friendship, so probably, yes, and in ways you haven't even begun to imagine," Darcy answered. 

Steve made a noise that on anyone less upstanding than Captain America would have been a groan of dismay, but Darcy caught the smile in his eyes and decided the morning was definitely a success, and one that she was counting on to carry over into the minefield of the evening's formal reception.

"Thanks for coming along," Steve said as she was tucking her hair back up under her helmet. "I'm pretty sure I owe you at least a sugared-up coffee for knocking your sleep off-schedule."

"While I am never going to say no to caffeine, this--" Darcy gestured vaguely to the hospital campus around them--"was not really a hardship." She meant to keep it light and easy, because that was more-or-less the role she fit into, but heard herself adding, "I know the rest of the weekend is raising a lot of money for things that are important to you, but this morning felt like it was just as big of a deal. Thanks for bringing me along." Steve nodded once and Darcy hurried to get things back on track. "Okay, onward to Starbucks where I will definitely be getting an extra espresso shot or three and you--" She smacked Steve lightly on the shoulder as she got herself situated on the bike behind him--"You will be keeping that promise you just made by buying them out of their protein bites to lay down a base for the rest of the day."

"Yes, ma'am," Steve said, his voice dry and amused even over the helmet intercom. Darcy got her arms wrapped around his waist, doing her best to ignore the part of her brain that was yelling at her to at least _try_ not to spin that into more than a friendly affection, and they were off.


	9. The Gala

"Nat!" Steve said in a voice so concerned Darcy wasn't sure what exactly to expect other than it wasn't turning around to see Natasha making her way across the crowded floor, looking as amazing as always. She wore black, sleek and deadly, and for all that the gown screamed haute couture even to Darcy's non-fashion-trained eye, no one was ever going to mistake her for a random gala attendee."What are you doing here?" Steve continued, and then when Natasha rolled her eyes and made a brief dismissive gesture, he looked over her shoulder to where Agent Barton was trailing along behind her and asked _him_. "What's she doing here?"

"She's a stubborn word-I'm-not-supposed-to-say-in-polite-company," Barton answered, which was about as much as Darcy had ever heard him say at once in all the months that she'd known him. She'd gathered that him being uncommunicative was a side-effect from all the bad shit that had happened during Loki's brief go at invading the world, so it was probably good that he wasn't limiting himself to grunts, but Natasha didn't look all that impressed by it.

"Go ahead and say it in non-polite company and see how that turns out for you," Natasha said with a poisonous smile and it was Barton's turn to roll his eyes. 

"I think you're forgetting the ex-fil trip home," he said. 

Darcy had heard just enough intra-team gossip to know that there had been a solo Black Widow mission (that Barton apparently hadn't been happy with right from the first) that had ended with an informally "appropriated" Quinjet piloted by Hawkeye as the Plan Z (as in, _so_ completely off-plan) recovery mission, with Natasha all but bleeding out on the way home. There was also something about some rescued girls and a gun to Barton's head the whole way, but Darcy wasn't cleared to know anything really in-depth so she was still putting puzzle pieces together. Regardless, it _was_ a little surprising to see Natasha here.

"I'm pretty sure I was saying it non-stop then," Barton continued doggedly, ignoring Natasha's snort, "and hey, look--" he gestured at himself, and Darcy seriously had to applaud the cutting sarcasm in every inch of the gesture. "Still here, Widow."

"You're supposed to be in Medical," Steve said, skipping right through all the byplay and staying on target with that stubborn attitude nobody really believed in until they ran up against it personally. 

"Please," Natasha answered. "As if I'd let a bullet--" 

"Or three," Barton interjected, but he backed off when she glared at him.

"--keep me away from all of … this." Natasha transferred her glare to Steve and stared him down with a stubbornness of her own; Darcy had a brief, hallucinogenic impression of the literal embodiment of _irresistible force, meet immovable object_. "Relax, Steve," Natasha finally sighed. "I'm here; Clint's hovering; it's all fine."

"You didn't need to come," Steve repeated. 

"Teamwork makes the dream work," Natasha said, pointedly taking Barton's arm and going off to talk with Pepper and Dr. Banner, and seriously, while Darcy was happy the whole team (except for Thor who was off cleaning up from all the mess the Dark Elves had left) was there to support Steve, she could see where it was kind of a mixed blessing. Mostly, it reminded Darcy of her and her cousins, fighting to the death, but ready as anything to turn on any outsider doing dirt on any member of the family, regardless of whether or not they were speaking to each other at the time.

Steve turned back to Darcy with an incredibly pissy look on his face, which was kind of a surprise given how he hadn't looked even half as annoyed with the entitled jerks who'd been all over him again during the evening. Then he noticed her watching him and visibly smoothed his expression back to something close to the mask he wore with the entitled jerks.

"Don't do that," Darcy said, almost without thinking about it. "I mean, you don't have to pretend like it's all fine for me."

It took a second, but Steve finally relaxed into a kind of a rueful exasperation. "Sorry," he said to Darcy. "She just--" He shrugged. "I know nobody really liked the idea of me doing this weekend, and I appreciate the support, but it's hardly a good reason for Nat to check herself out of Medical."

"Well," Darcy said, deliberately going for a light, breezy tone, "I'm pretty sure that not even SHIELD gets their medical staff enough combat pay to tell the Black Widow that?" She arched an eyebrow thoughtfully. "And I'm guessing that while Agent Barton probably doesn't have a problem with telling her, it's gotta take time to convince her.."

"True," Steve answered with a reluctant grin. (Darcy was absolutely counting that smile as a win.) "I can't decide if I ever want to see one of those conversations or if I'm better off not knowing." Darcy snorted with laughter. 

(It was very un-glamorous, but she felt like the sophisticated gloss had long since worn off events like this even if it had only been a couple of days. Don't get her wrong, it was still kind of mind-boggling that she was here, in yet one more scary-expensive dress and shoes, but she'd definitely lost her outside-looking-in dreaminess about it all, so she wasn't so worried about having to be top-notch in her performative, arm-candy femininity.) 

Steve let her take his arm and continued in a thoughtful tone, "On the team lead side of things, no way do I want to be there; but on the friend side… I'd probably pay good money to watch Clint try to wear her down." 

"I'll defer to your wisdom on the team leader side of things," Darcy said as they walked toward the next table they needed to visit/glad-hand. "But I will bring the metaphorical popcorn for the other side."

It was Steve's turn to snort with laughter, but like the PR pro that Darcy was coming to realize he was, he got it tamped down and sublimated into a normal-looking smile by the time they got in hearing range and he could introduce her to the next round of sponsors. Darcy knew she'd never met so many 1-percenters in her life and most of them were living down to their abysmal reputation. Sure, she'd met people this weekend who were thoughtful and engaged (or at least could fake it during a conversation) but the vast, _vast_ majority were vacuous assholes who were overly impressed with themselves and their money (and in too many cases, visibly disappointed that Steve wasn't there with someone they could assign misogynistic social capital to, like a model or seriously, Miss America. Darcy was sure there were many lovely people with those professions, but that wouldn't be why the jerks would expect Steve to be with them.) 

But.

They--she and Steve--were here to do a job. Darcy got that now, and she was happy to say she could sincerely thank almost all of the people she'd met for supporting causes that she knew were important to Steve. For most of them, that was the limit to any graciousness she could summon, but she found it a lot less aggravating if she focused on that part.

The reception was being held in a giant tent set up in the parking lot right behind the part of the museum that held the _Valkyrie_ so that people could go in and out of that gallery without getting into the rest of the museum. Darcy guessed it made sense, because there was a lot of square footage out in the main areas of the museum and she didn't think anybody wanted to pay for all that extra security. Plus, Steve could stay in the tent and not have to deal with stupid people who wanted fucking selfies with him and the plane. It was a very fancy tent, with air conditioning and a floor and a lighting and sound system so it wasn't like it was a hardship to hang out there. Lots of nice waitstaff, too, so everyone could stay hydrated and fed, _Steve_

"You sure you don't want a dance?" Steve asked.

"I'm good if you have the time, but I'm fine if you don't," Darcy said, which wasn't _exactly_ the truth. The super-plain, unvarnished version was that she found it beyond tacky that people were out there on the dance floor (like she'd said, it was a fancy tent) while the _Valkyrie_ and all of the hideous history it represented was just on the other side of the wall. And being honest with herself, she was kind of regretting the dances from the first night, when she hadn't yet thought through all the implications of the weekend. 

She was finding it hard to believe that had been only two days ago, but she was really fucking aware of them all now and it hadn't even been hard to turn down the fun dress they'd laid out for her (midnight blue sequins, slinky as all hell, with a pattern of big, silver sequinned stars scattered across the top) in favor of the (also very nice, no doubt about it) sedate, emerald green velvet she was wearing. It was restrained and probably a little old-looking for her, but this so wasn't a whoop-it-up occasion. She was still mourning the starry one.

 _Oh, well,_ she thought, _at least I don't look like the mother of the groom_ , which had been the kindest description she had been able to come up with for some of the other dresses. Who knew actual designers could do that poorly when they couldn't show off skin?

"I could get Sam to go out with you," Steve said, and Darcy wrenched her attention back to the here-and-now. "I still should probably talk with a few more people, but there's no reason you can't--"

"Steve Rogers," Darcy interrupted, "are you trying to pawn me off on your wing man?" 

"Well, I--"

"Is _that_ what all the talking up what a great guy he is was about?" Darcy was joking, she totally was, but there was a tiiiny little kernel of possible truth buried in all of it and she probably should be honest about how desperately her mouth was trying to cover for it.

"He is a great guy," Steve said. "And he'd be happy to go out on the dance floor with you while I take care of things." He stopped and looked down at her, his eyes serious, and right there, Darcy was acutely aware that whatever joke she'd been trying to make was nothing but a cover for every single insecurity she'd been trying to gloss over during the weekend. More, she was pretty sure Steve knew it as well. "But," he said, and Darcy braced herself for the dose of truth-telling his eyes were telling was coming, "I am not at all trying to get rid of you." 

"Pinkie swear?" Darcy heard herself blurt out, which sounded really idiotic. On the other hand, she couldn't believe she'd actually managed to form words, so go her (and the fact that her mouth could operate without much input from her brain, which was frozen in disbelief at the implications of what it had just heard.) She didn't even have time to cringe, though, before Steve smiled at her and took her hand, so it seemed entirely possible that crazy, flip comments in response to actual emotional communication weren't going to be deal breakers. 

"Pinkie swear," he echoed, not looking away from her for so much as a split second. Darcy had never been one for soppy romantic gestures, or swooning over boys, but right there, for the moment, the rest of the world dropped away, the orchestra and the tables and tables of people, the swirling lights and everyone wanting a piece of Steve, all of it distant and in the background, so that it was only the two of them. 

Steve's eyes were blue, everyone knew that, but Darcy thought it was maybe the first time she'd realized how deep they were, even after all the months of hopeless crushing. That was probably because she was actually looking at him as though he was a person, rather than CAPTAIN AMERICA, a small, sensible (and somehow still functioning) part of her brain told her. It also threw in a little shower of recrimination about how much she _had_ let that shiny, Avengers-generated gloss blind her despite (somewhat smugly) thinking it hadn't. _Later_ , Darcy promised herself. _I absolutely will look at that, for real, but *not right now*, thank you._

She also thought that a sensible person might think twice before she threw herself off the cliff and into those depths, but, well. No one had ever accused Darcy of being all that sensible, and really, who fucking _cared_? You'd have to be an idiot to feel the way Darcy did and not take that leap, not when Steve Rogers was standing there waiting to catch you. 

"Don't think I won't be holding you to that, Rogers," Darcy said, the words rushing out of her. That was the easy part. The scary, hard part was to commit to everything she was seeing in his eyes and reach up to touch his face in answer. Or, truthfully, the hard part was to get her arm moving, because as soon as the tips of her fingers brushed across the curve of his cheekbone, she couldn't have stopped touching him for anything.

Steve was super-still against her, but it was the kind of still that felt like he was trying not to startle her. The thought that she might have read him wrong had just started to form in her head when he closed his eyes in something that was a tiny bit longer than a normal blink, and when he opened them again, they were happy and smiling. Darcy smiled back.

"I wouldn't expect anything else from you," Steve said, right before he turned his head so he could press a kiss to her fingers. It was Darcy's turn to go still--because holy fucking _shit_ , she couldn't even _breathe_ , which she felt was a very reasonable reaction given the circumstances. "I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't meant it," Steve murmured.

"Me, too," Darcy said, her lungs somehow remembering how to process oxygen before she passed out, thank-fucking-god. "Sam's a great guy and I'm pretty sure I'd love to get a dance with him, but not right now." She held onto Steve's hand as tightly as she could. "Right now, I want to be with you."

Some idiot picked that time to show off how well he knew America's icon by calling ( _loudly_ ), "Steve, good to see you," and totally shattered the bubble that had been so nicely wrapped around Darcy and Steve. (When Darcy got her face under control enough to look, it turned out the idiot was actually the senator from Virginia and thus, the putative host of the whole evening, but still. _Idiot_. She didn't bother to hide that assessment from Steve, which got her a bonus grin and a wink as he turned.)

"Senator," Steve called back, lacing his fingers through Darcy's as he started them off toward the table where all the important people were seated. (Darcy recognized at least one other senator and maybe a House rep or two. Unfortunately--or maybe fortunately, so she wouldn't have to keep herself calm--it was nobody she really admired, but at least it wasn't any of the cringe-worthy ones either.) Before they got too close, Steve slanted a look down at Darcy and murmured, "Late night steak and cocktails again tonight?"

"Abso-fucking-lutely," Darcy answered promptly, and probably a little too loudly if the look on the senator's wife's face was anything to go by. 

It didn't matter, though. 

Steve grinned at Darcy and his hand tightened on hers for a split-second right before he let go so he could shake the senator's hand and introduce her. Never in a million years had Darcy thought anything like this might happen, but here she was and there Steve was, and they had this.


	10. The Real World

"You're sure you're okay with me taking the truck tonight," Darcy said to Jane as she started shutting down her computer. She hadn't really gotten a lot done during the day, but at least she had the excuse of Steve being on the way out west.

"Hmm?" Jane asked, still heads-down in the last set of rendered data. 

"Jaaaaane," Darcy sing-songed. Sometimes that was the only way to break through Jane's focus, because it really fucking irritated her. Darcy tried to use her powers for good, but there were times when she just wanted an answer, dammit. "Jaaaaa-aaaaane, come back to me."

"Oh, yes, it's fine," Jane mumbled, finally looking up and blinking owlishly at Darcy. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Okay, thank you again," Darcy said. Puente Antiguo was not known for its resorts--or even its 2-star motels. Steve had found an AirBandB up closer to Santa Fe (or, Darcy suspected, one of Pepper's people had found it for him. She was hoping it was whoever had found her stylists and not the poor guy who'd completely not heard what her style was in the first place), but that meant it was a good thirty minutes away from the lab. Darcy had spent two years in the town, walking everywhere, so the truck was her only option. Jane hadn't had a problem with it at all, but--like Bubbe had always said--it never hurt to say thank you. 

Darcy went over and tapped the screen that was connected to the jobs-monitoring software. "This is all set up for the overnight data run--don't touch anything!"

"I'm sorry, but who has the Ph.D here?" Jane muttered. Somehow, Darcy refrained from rolling her eyes at her (technical) boss. 

"You do, but remember how you don't like that database?" Darcy answered. It was a legacy, pre-SQL data warehouse from the Cold War; Eric had managed to call in some favors from some even older friends to write something that would extract the data and rehouse it into something Jane could query with whatever she used now. (Darcy's eyes glazed over at all of this, but, as everyone always told her, computers were dumb and Darcy could follow a procedure that set things up to kick off the translator.) "Remember how it crashed last time and we had to start all over again? Remember how slow it all is?"

"Fine," Jane muttered, sulky now. "I won't touch anything."

"And you will have your pretty, pretty data in the morning," Darcy promised, which was all well and good, but left her with nothing to do but pick up her backpack and put on her coat. The keys to the truck were on the hook by the door and Darcy was out of excuses. Of course, she was beyond excited to see Steve, but her doom-scrolling brain had spent a lot of time (when it should have been sleeping) coming up with all the reasons why Steve had probably come to his senses and, being a nice guy, had flown out to let her down in person. 

This was objectively idiotic--she had five texts in the last hour from him, keeping her up-to-date with where he was and how much he was looking forward to see her, but…

Her brain, ladies and gentlemen. It was definitely a piece of work.

Before she could (completely non-metaphorically) slap herself upside the head, Jane unexpectedly surfaced out of her data and called across the room to her.

"Darcy," she said, her voice very sharp and clear, all vague ramblings and distracted mutters left by the wayside. "We haven't had much of a chance to talk since you got back--" 

The weather had been clear starting the night Darcy had gotten home from DC and while she was sure Jane was going to shift the bulk of her research to radio telescopes soon, there was still a long list of things to observe visually, so they'd been out almost every night. 

"But," Jane continued, "I'm glad you and Steve have… progressed to something more real than you tiptoeing around, trying to be his friend."

"Oh," Darcy answered, a little shocked not to be getting a lecture on keeping her expectations in check. Which, to be fair, hadn't been out of place before she and Steve had had their breakthrough moment in the middle of the gala tent. She could admit to being deep in denial about how not-just-crushing she'd been _and_ about not being very gracious about Jane's clear-eyed assessments. "Um, thanks? I mean, I'm still not sure how--or really, _if_ \--it's all going to work out, but it does feel good to have it all out in the open."

And to know Steve felt the same way, of course. That was a biggie. Now, they just had to figure out how to make an actual relationship work cross-country, grind through all the Avengers-related issues, come up with some kind of a PR game plan so Darcy didn't get eviscerated online as the whore who 'trapped' Captain America with her evil, sluttty ways, and maybe even go on a normal first date.

"I'm not trying to be prescriptive or tell you what to do," Jane said, which was totally Jane-speak for doing exactly that, "but…" Her voice trailed off into something that was a lot more emotional than normal conversations with Jane ever got. "Try to take it one day at a time. Enjoy the present and let the future stay in the future."

"Wow," Darcy said, slewing her head around to stare at Jane. "Strong words from the queen of 'failing to plan is planning to fail.'"

"In the case of interpersonal relationships with an Avenger, the accepted theory was proven false and I have been re-hypothesizing," Jane said dryly.

"Okay, re-hypothesizing, got it, thank youuuuu, don't wait up," Darcy said and made her escape before Jane got into any _really_ personal stuff.

* * *

"Hi," Steve said, opening the door to the condo they'd found for him so quickly after Darcy's kick-standing-in-for-a-knock that she almost didn't have time to catch her balance.

"Hi," she gasped, juggling her armloads of stuff and somehow managing to stay on her feet. "Here--" She shoved the bag with dinner--posole rojas and all the fixings, from the diner--at him. Being Captain America, he dealt with it admirably, not dropping a thing. That let her get her carry-all--stuffed full of DVDs and microwave popcorn and chocolate and her PS3 and controllers and games and every other random thing she could think of to make sure they wouldn't just sit there and stare at each other--and her backpack and the t-shirt Isabel from the diner had insisted Darcy take when she'd admitted she was getting food for an actual date with Steve and finally, herself into the apartment.

"Hi," she said again once she got everything dropped on the living room floor and turned to take the bags back from Steve. "Hi." She leaned up, meaning only to press a kiss to his cheek, but… 

Well. 

He must have only just recently shaved--his skin was smooth and he smelled clean and fresh and very, very faintly of something expensively subtle--and his chest, where she'd laid a hand to help keep her balance, was warm and strong, so that one little kiss really wasn't enough and when she leaned back in for another and he turned his head, they ended up in in an actual, proper, on-the-mouth start to the visit.

"Hi," Steve said, reaching out to steady her with a hand on her arm and kissing her again, longer this time and with actual intent. 

Darcy probably should have let it go--they had a lot to talk about--but there was no way she could actually make herself back away. DC had been very chill on the physical intimacy side of things: a swoon-worthy first kiss on the elevator at the hotel; some excellent cuddling on the couches at the rooftop lounge. (Darcy's MVP bartender had taken one look at them after the gala and opened a bottle of champagne without even asking, thus solidifying his hold on the title.) Steve had still been wound tighter than an old watch spring, and Darcy was pretty exhausted, too, but they got in a relaxed picnic on the grounds of the Washington Monument, with an actual blanket and basket and an entire hour to lie back and watch the kites people were flying. They'd let Jonathon drive them back to the airport, mostly so they could take advantage of the back of his SUV for more cuddling, but that had been the extent of any hands-on stuff before Darcy got on the plane to fly back to reality.

True, this reality included a lot of texting and nightly calls and it had only been a little more than a week since they'd said good-bye, but there hadn't been anyone doing Darcy's hair and make-up and no Steve in yummy clothes right next to her so it was definitely more of a drag than the weekend had been.

In celebration of not being on opposite sides of the country, Darcy got her arms wound around Steve's neck, only breaking the kiss long enough to laugh against his mouth when he picked her up so that they were eye-to-eye. He was also very good at navigating around furniture and stuff until he could deposit her on the bar that separated the kitchen from the living area. She managed to not wrap her legs around his waist and get it on right there, but it was a close call. Jane's advice to live for the here-and-now was front and center in Darcy's brain, but she thought they should probably talk about a thing or two before they really jumped each other. That was the point of dinner and all the crap she'd dragged along with her. She was going to be honest about the overnight bag out in the car, but that was only common sense. She was long past her walk-of-shame days.

She actually kind of lost track of how long they stayed there--Darcy with her arms looped around Steve's neck, Steve with his arms braced on the counter on either side of Darcy's hips--making out with long, lazy kisses, no rush, no hurry, nobody watching or waiting for them to show up for the next event. It was pretty awesome, but it did finally end, or at least, get a little calmer, Steve easing them down until he was resting his forehead on hers and they were just kind of breathing each other in.

"I deeply approve of this greeting," Darcy finally found voice enough to say, but it was more like a sigh.

Steve smiled at her, but straightened up before answering, "I can hear a 'but' in there."

"No," Darcy said quickly. "What you're hearing is me very firmly reminding myself that there's no deadline to this--" She reached out and cupped his jaw in her palm, reveling in the feel of him, in being _able_ to feel him-- "so there's no need to rush." 

Steve let her trace his bottom lip with the pad of her thumb, and then turned his head to press a kiss to her palm. At the very least, Darcy didn't feel like she was about to pass out, so possibly she was getting used to this mind-boggling thing that had happened, but the faintest brush of his tongue on her skin was doing _nothing_ for her self-control.

"Okay," she said, willing some firmness into her voice. "Trust me when I say that I am way more than ready to take this completely out of PG-13 range-- _fast_ \--but," she took a deep breath, "I am not known for my wise management of my personal life and I really, really, _really_ do not want to mess this--you and me--up right out of the gate. So, maybe we could talk some? Now that it's just us, no real schedule?"

"We can," Steve said. "Definitely." He didn't look upset or irritated, only gave her one of those determined-to-do-the-right-thing, Cap-is-on-your-side looks, and Darcy couldn't help breathe a sigh of relief (which was stupid, because she didn't actually think the guy who made Captain America come to life was going to be a jerk about things, but see again re: her brain being all there when it came to unreasonable anxieties.)

"Right," Darcy said, taking a deep breath. "I--uh, was hoping for that, which is why I talked my way into a family pack dinner from Isabel at the diner--" 

She made a kind of _ta-da_ motion at the pile of to-go boxes in the bag Steve had dropped on the counter, and started fumbling them out and spreading them out.

"Darcy," Steve said, frowning now. "You honestly can't think I wouldn't want to--"

"Talk?" Darcy offered, and then sighed. It was probably time to come clean about her feelings. "No--I mean, I generally turn into an idiot when I think about you and me and an actual relationship, so I figured I should probably have something to do while I try to keep my mouth from running away from my brain."

"You never seemed like an idiot to me," Steve said quietly. "Did someone call you that?"

"No," Darcy admitted, because not even Jane had ever actually called her stupid. "I--it's--"

"You know how you don't like how I don't take care of myself?" Steve said. " _I_ don't like when you don't give yourself credit."

"I--" Darcy started again, but Steve just _looked_ at her with that Cap-is-not-impressed-by-your-bullshit expression all over his face, and jeez, she really should have been more on top of this whole sharing-emotions thing. "You're very sweet, but I totally am an idiot sometimes."

"I think you can say that about everyone," Steve said, very deliberately (and obviously) trying to lighten the mood, which was--again--super-sweet of him. "Even Natasha."

"No way," Darcy said, halfway playing along with the mood-lightening and halfway genuinely shocked and wanting to know more. 

"Trust me," Steve said.

"I do, you know," Darcy said. "Trust you." Impulsively, she leaned into him and brushed a kiss across his mouth. " _You_ , I mean; not Cap." She kissed him again. "Well, obviously I trust Captain America for certain things, but for normal, everyday things, I trust you."

"I'm glad," Steve murmured, his mouth only barely away from hers, so it was hard to tell where the talking stopped and the kissing started, but that was fine, at least until Darcy finally had to stop for air. It was completely unfair that Steve wasn't even breathing differently, but then Darcy's brain offered up yet one more _extremely_ slutty fantasy involving that very same breath control and the potential for some extra-excellent sex of the oral variety and she had to slam the brakes on, _hard_.

"Okay, trust is good," she said, which sounded pretty normal and not at all like her brain was producing pornos in its spare time. "Really. But we should eat and talk and--see what happens next."

Steve gave her a look like he could tell she wasn't being completely transparent with him, but what she'd said was actually what she'd wanted this night to be, so she could meet his eyes pretty calmly. Plus, she knew he was hungry and Isabel's cooking was pretty much nectar of the gods, so once she showed him how to fix a bowl with all the extras, he was nicely distracted. 

And whatever part of her brain that had insisted on dinner, etc, had been right. It _was_ easier to talk through things with something external to focus on and they never would have been comfortable enough to talk in any depth if they'd gone out to eat. The whole hour that they spent on the Avengers and Steve's commitment to them would have _never_ happened in public; and Darcy would probably have been too self-conscious to have admitted how much she'd gotten into being a part of Jane's work, way more than the original stupid 6-credits worth. It was easier to talk about past relationships, too; though Darcy's Millennial disasters up against Steve and the woman who founded SHIELD--jfc, the _woman who founded SHIELD_ \--practically gave her a panic attack.

"I'm pointing out right now that we barely had time to think about what might happen after the war; and she asks me every time she sees me now if I'm dating anyone," Steve said firmly, correctly interpreting the incipient freak-out Darcy knew was dancing around her eyes. "She thinks it's long past time I got my ass in gear with you."

"If you say so," Darcy sighed. The evening had progressed to where she was flopped out on the couch with Steve on the floor, leaning back against the same couch so that Darcy's hands were entirely likely to reach out and touch his face if she didn't keep control of them. 

"I do," Steve said, still firm and sure. "We're here now and I'm… really happy to be here." He turned his head to look at her properly. "More than happy." Darcy let her damn hands go and he sighed out as her fingers skimmed along his jaw. "Pepper asked me if I'd invited you to come along last weekend as a kind of a trial run with how weird my life is and… I think the answer is maybe?" 

"Did I pass?"

"Did I?" Steve's eyes were steady and uncompromising. "I was definitely not testing you--I don't think you're the type of person who wants to be near what they think of as the excitement or the thrill--" His mouth twisted in as cynical of a smile as Darcy had ever seen on his face--"of being around the Avengers." She thought that was the most diplomatic way of describing the groupies she knew he had to deal with she might have ever heard. Also, hell _no_ , she wasn't. "I've never thought that." 

"I mean," Darcy said, her mouth jumping in to cover the complicated emotions _that_ was flooding her with, "it's more like your friends are fun and they're kind of in the same circle as my friends, and hey, look--Avengers." She grinned at him. "I totally owe you for the visual of Thor trying to foxtrot in Tony Stark's living room, though." Steve smiled back at her, and then, when she added, "I'll be having a meh day and that will pop into my head and voila, instant mood boost," he gave in and laughed. "I still don't get it--he's a natural with a fight and dancing is just a non-violent form of sparring, but…" Darcy shook her head, but then admitted to herself that she was totally babbling, a classic diversionary tactic of her brain's. "Yeah, so I'm not here for the potential star-fucking aspect, but I don't think we'd have hit a second club floor if you thought that, so I'm guessing there's more here?"

"Everyone thinks they know what my life is, but... " Steve sighed. "When I first woke up, I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing--after the Chitauri, I mean. That was a pretty clear-cut job." 

Darcy couldn't help snorting, "Yeah--gank the creepy aliens, get rid of Thor's psychotic little not-brother."

Steve shrugged. "Not all that different than what I was doing with Schmidt. After that, though, it was--I took a long time deciding what I should be doing. Pepper helped, but it's not what you'd probably think of as a normal life. I don't think I scared you off with everything last weekend--the press and the publicity and all the making nice--but--" Steve hesitated. "But I'm less sure about that."

"No, you didn't scare me off," Darcy said, the words coming easily. "But I'm glad I've kind of been in the loop for at least a couple of days, because now I know I can probably deal with it all."

"I think you can; I've always thought that." Steve took a long, slow breath. "I don't know if you want to."

Darcy bit back the _Oh, fuck yeah_ that was dying to come flying out of her mouth and thought about what he was saying. She couldn't kid herself that she truly understood everything that might happen, but she already knew the special hell that was waiting around for news when something was going down and he was out fixing the mess, and the rest of it was something she could learn to deal with. 

"I'm not saying it's going to be easy, or that I'm always going to do--or, let's be real, _say_ \-- the right thing," Darcy said, stroking the back of her fingers across the high arch of Steve's cheekbone, "but I absolutely do want to deal with it. All of it."

"I'm really glad," Steve said, his voice low and rough. Darcy leaned down and Steve tilted his head back and they somehow made the angles work for a long, careful kiss. 

And then, what the hell, another one. 

And one more after that, just for good measure. 

That still wasn't enough, but Darcy's neck was threatening to cramp so she had to straighten up, which could have been a drag, except Steve did some crazy ninja move up onto the couch and that was so much better even before Darcy's brain got with the program and got her legs out from where he'd boxed them in against the sofa back so she could wriggle up into his lap. She thought it was the perfect set up, but Steve hesitated long enough that she started to worry she'd missed something.

"Can I ask you one thing?" Steve said before she could really panic. She nodded and Steve gave a semi-sheepish shrug and said, in a voice that sounded like he was confessing to something too weird for words, "Can you take your hair down?"

It was going to look like a mess--Darcy hadn't even dried it before she'd braided it back out of her face earlier in the morning--but her hands were fumbling with the elastic at the end before she even thought about it. And _then_ , Steve slid both hands into the braids, gently working them loose and Darcy could not have told anyone her _name_ , much less worry about how wild her hair might or might not be.

"Oh, that's niiiiice," she managed to say, all the tension melting out of her, and was very proud of herself for actually forming words. Her mouth truly was amazing sometimes. 

"That sounds suspiciously like a purr," Steve said, very clearly amused. Darcy pried one eyelid open and gave him as good of a _What do *you* think?_ look as she was capable of, but since he wasn't stopping the whole excellent bit with his hands and her hair, she could be magnanimous and leave it at a look.

Getting her eyes open, though, reminded her that he was right there, right next to her. It would be stupid to not take advantage of that, Darcy thought. This time the kiss started off familiar, like the ones before it, but something about how Steve was holding her--because he was, his hands were cradling her head, like she was something of value, something that _he_ valued--put another layer of not only physical touch into the kiss. 

Steve let her deepen the kiss, opened his mouth against hers and made a low, helpless noise as she licked into his mouth, and then somehow _he_ was the one stealing her breath and it was all Darcy could do to dig her hands into his biceps and hold on for the ride. Even when he stopped kissing her mouth so she could gasp in enough air to keep from passing out, he was dropping little touches, little butterflies along her jaw and her cheekbones, soft brushes to her closed eyelids and then the slightest hint of a bite to her earlobe, and all the while his hands stroking through her hair. 

"Okay," Darcy said, not even caring that her voice sounded dreamy and faint. "So we were going to see what might happen and um, this?"

"Seems to be happening," Steve agreed, and at least he sounded unsteady, too.

"Which is really really good," Darcy groaned, her head falling back as Steve nudged up under her jaw and then trailed his mouth down her neck. Her pulse was beating hard enough that she knew he had to feel how completely gone she was even before he breathed out over the skin he'd just dampened and she shivered hard. "But not here, okay? Not--not randomly, on a couch or, or the floor--I mean, I'm not opposed to either, not on general principle--oh, walls are good, too, but not for the first time--"

"Okay," Steve said and stood up, bringing Darcy up with him like she weighed nothing, edging his way around the coffee table that still held all the dishes and containers from their dinner. 

"Holy fuck," Darcy gasped, her eyes flying open even as she was digging her hands harder into his arms and wrapping her legs around his waist--though that was mostly for her own sense of balance, because he really, seriously did not need any help carrying her.

"You okay there?" Steve grinned at her, a smile that by rights should have been completely cocky, but that held an underlying uncertainty. Darcy knew a moment of triumph that she could absolutely answer both emotions.

"Please understand," she told him as he got them down started down a short hallway, "that when I say I really really like being with you, I am ninety-nine percent talking about _you_ , Steve, the guy who is too nice--and too stubborn--for his own good sometimes--but there is that last one percent that is totally into the super-soldier."

Steve's grin--a real, true one--flashed out right as he shifted her easily to one arm, so he could open the bedroom door with the other. _And_ he was kissing her again, just to prove he could multi-task, too, the big show-off.

"Okay, ninety-eight percent," Darcy's mouth babbled as soon as she could breathe again. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know it's shallow and all, but--"

"Not any more shallow than how much I like your hair," Steve mumbled, and he really didn't seem to mind, not with how he stood there and kissed her, rock-solid against her, and ignoring the bed that was only a few feet away as though he didn't want to even take the time to get them there. 

"We should definitely work on some lifts and flips for the next time we hit up a dance floor," Darcy said, which was kind of a non-sequitur, but her brain was suuuuper hyped from all the kissing and free-associating was how it burned off all the excess energy. She was pretty sure Steve got that. "I can't believe we really let all this go to waste," she added and he hummed something that sounded like an agreement against her throat. Then her brain took another wild leap and she heard herself say, kind of dreamily, "Or put it to use in the shower--"

"Yes," Steve basically growled, his mouth moving insistently over the skin of her throat and his fingers digging into where he was holding her. "That."

"Okay," Darcy said, waaaaay closer to a whimper than she wanted to admit, but she did not feel that a jury of her peers would convict her of being a wimp given the provocation of Steve Rogers talking about sex in a shower. "And, and, I'm down to ninety-seven-point-five, but if you don't get us actually _to_ the bed, Imma have to start taking deductions against the usefulness of said super-soldierness."

"Bossy," Steve grumbled, but he did get moving again, two long steps over to the bed, so Darcy just smirked and worked her hands up under his shirt and chalked it up as the most epic win of her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \o/

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the lyrics to the Glen Miller Big Band standard, [_In The Mood_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vOUYry_5Nw), which I feel certain Steve danced to both before and during the war.
> 
> Random links:   
> The place they're staying at in DC is the old [Hotel Washington](https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/waswh-w-washington-dc/), which is right across the street from the White House and whose rooftop bar is legendary for its views (also for the political types who end up there every night because it's more-or-less their neighborhood bar.)
> 
> The brunch happened in a gallery of the [Smithsonian National Museum of American History](https://www.si.edu/museums/american-history-museum), outside of where the [Star-Spangled Banner](https://www.si.edu/object/star-spangled-banner-nmah:siris_sic_7506) is on exhibit (yes, I know, nobody really can do that, but if anybody could, it would be Captain America, right?)
> 
> And while I'm pretending about museums, I feel like the only place for the _Valkyrie_ exhibit would be the Air and Space museum's [Udvar-Hazy Center](https://airandspace.si.edu/udvar-hazy-center). They have a shuttle and a Blackbird, they'd definitely be ready to put up another wing for Schmidt's evil plane.
> 
> I borrowed most of Darcy's clothes from assorted galas and receptions I've been to (my bff is in the society swirl), but the gala dress she turned down is this [Theia](https://www.renttherunway.com/shop/designers/theia/black_stargaze_gown). Tony needs to throw a formal party so she can wear it there.
> 
> If you want to come say hi, I'm [](http://topaz119.tumblr.com)[](http://topaz119.tumblr.com)**topaz119** (tumblr).


End file.
